January 17, 2018 — On Saturday, Alaska Board of Fisheries voted down a proposal to change commercial Dungeness crab seasons in Southeast Alaska.
Crabbers were seeking set season lengths and no option for shortened fishing time like they experienced in 2017.
Crabber Max Worhatch proposed the change and successfully got the board to add the proposal to the meeting after missing the deadline for regulation changes.
“I would like to seriously consider this,” Worhatch told the board. “I put a proposal in, just like this three years ago, didn’t get anywhere. The department felt like they had to have something to manage the fishery when it got to the low end. But in my experience and just from what I’ve seen in Oregon, California and Washington, size sex and season for Dungeness crab works and it works extremely well. It’s kind of an autopilot thing, doesn’t take a lot of work.”
Size, sex and season are a management tool for regulating the catch of crab, with a minimum size, allowing crabbers to only keep male crab and only during a set season.
While that’s part of the management in Southeast Alaska, since 2000 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also has set the season length based on the catch from the first week of the season.
In 2017, a low commercial catch in that first week led to shortened summer and fall seasons in most of the region.
The board considered an amended proposal for set seasons, with the same starting and ending dates already used around region but deleting the language in the management plan that allows for early closure with low catches.
Crabbers said they needed the assurance of scheduled fishing time, especially with the fleet fishing in smaller areas with competition from sea otters.
Part of the Southeast Alaska summer commercial crab fishing season overlaps with the time when male Dungeness molt, or shed their shell and grow a new one.
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