July 27, 2022 — Alaska’s Bering Sea king crab crash has reached proportions it hasn’t known since 1994 and 1995, when the population surveys warranted a shutdown of the fishery. The outlook appears equally dismal for Bering Sea opilio crab.
In last year’s 2021-2022 red king crab season the fleet stood down after trawl surveys indicated that the biomass had fallen below the threshold of 8.4 million mature females. Though complete data for this year’s surveys won’t be out until sometime in September or October, preliminary data from the first of three surveys indicates another season in which crabbers will stay tied to the docks.
“We’re seeing some preliminary information that shows that we’re going to continue to be low in abundance,” says Mark Stichert, a groundfish and shellfish fisheries management coordinator with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in Kodiak. “We’re seeing some very similar trends. The number of mature females is going down, and mature males are slightly up. What we’re not seeing is the entry of small crab into the fishery.”
The Total Allowable Catch (TAC) is based upon data gleaned from three phases of trawl surveys conducted in late summer. In the 2008-2009 season the TAC was set at around 20 million pounds. In the last decade the TAC’s have risen from 7.8 million pounds in the 2011-2012 season to 9.97 million pounds in the 2015-2016 season, then declined.
The TAC for the 2017-2018 season had been set at about 3 million pounds and was reduced to the 1.2 million pounds in the 2020-2021 fishery.