May 9, 2023 — In the wake of Alaska’s closure of the Bering Sea snow crab, red king crab, blue king crab fisheries for 2022-2023 season, and likely for coming years, Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, hopes that reducing impacts of other gears on crab will hasten the resources’ recovery.
“We don’t believe that crab bycatch is the cause of the snow crab decline,” says Goen. “But we think it could slow down the recovery.”
Goen attributes the rapid and dramatic drop in snow crab abundance to a number of factors, mostly related to climate change.
“We know that climate was a main driver of the snow crab decline,” says Goen. “There was an absence of sea ice at a time when the snow crab population was exploding, and that created a number of problems.”