Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen has committed $11 million over three years to a coalition of whale scientists, conservation groups and commercial fishermen aimed at getting better data on whales off the Bay Area coast, The San Francisco Standard reported.
Why it matters: Regulators have pushed the commercial Dungeness crab season past the holidays in recent years to reduce whale entanglements. Better real-time data could change when the season opens.
What the money pays for
The grant, through Larsen's Clean Break Fund, lets The Marine Mammal Center expand vessel surveys and shore spotting at Point Reyes, the Farallon Islands and elsewhere, and pilot acoustic gliders that detect blue, fin and humpback whales in real time, The Standard reported.
The Nature Conservancy will expand fishermen-led whale surveys and keep developing AI tools to replace the PDF reports regulators review today. The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations represents the industry, and part of the grant pays crab boats that help with surveys, lost-gear retrieval and entanglement response.
If the coalition's data supports it, new rules could be in place by the 2027-28 holiday season, The Standard reported. The data could also show the season should be shortened.
Background
Larsen told CBS San Francisco in May that the November-December window is about 90% of the season's revenue and that fishermen had missed it six years in a row. At the time, Oceana scientist Geoff Shester said entanglements rose in years when the fishery was open in late fall.
Last month Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1393, extending the state program that delays or closes crab season when whale thresholds are crossed through 2040, The Standard reported.
Sources: The San Francisco Standard; CBS San Francisco.