Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Bering Sea snow crab fishing to resume, but at an ultra-low level to encourage repopulation

October 16, 2024 — After a two-year hiatus forced by low stocks, the Bering Sea snow crab harvest is back on.

The decision to reopen the harvest, announced on Oct. 4 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is based on signs of recovery in the crab populations. The official harvest opening was Tuesday.

Signs of recovery are modest, and so is the allowable catch. The harvest is limited to 4.72 million pounds, a level that is a far cry from the 45-million-pound quota used in the 2020-21 season and similarly large quotas in earlier years.

This season’s total allowable catch is the smallest in the history of the fishery, said Mark Stichert, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Kodiak-based management coordinator for groundfish and shellfish harvests.

The department sets catch limits based on information gleaned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

As Stichert describes it, the department’s decision to allow a “small, conservative fishery” for snow crab was the product of a careful balancing act.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

 

ALASKA: As the once-lucrative Bering Sea crab harvest resumes, Alaska fishermen face challenges

October 19, 2023 — In the short term, Alaska crab fishermen and the communities that depend on them will get a slight reprieve from the disastrous conditions they have endured for the past two years, with harvests for iconic red king crab to open on Sunday.

In the long term, the future for Bering Sea crab and the people who depend on it is clouded by environmental and economic upheaval.

The decision by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to open harvests of Bristol Bay red king crab after an unprecedented two-year shutdown was a close call, a state biologist told industry members during a meeting Oct. 12.

In the short term, Alaska crab fishermen and the communities that depend on them will get a slight reprieve from the disastrous conditions they have endured for the past two years, with harvests for iconic red king crab to open on Sunday.

In the long term, the future for Bering Sea crab and the people who depend on it is clouded by environmental and economic upheaval.

The decision by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to open harvests of Bristol Bay red king crab after an unprecedented two-year shutdown was a close call, a state biologist told industry members during a meeting Oct. 12.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News