Saving Seafood

As crab prices soar across Alaska, McDonald’s tests new snow crab sandwich

March 6, 2017 — Crabbers are hauling back pots from the Alaska Panhandle to the Bering Sea, and reduced catches are resulting in record prices.

The year’s first red king crab fishery at Norton Sound has yielded 17,000 pounds so far of its nearly 40,000 pound winter quota for more than 50 local fishermen. The crab, taken through the ice near Nome, are paying a record $7.75 a pound. A summer opener will produce a combined catch of nearly half a million pounds for the region.

Red king crab from Bristol Bay also yielded the highest price ever for fishermen, averaging $10.89 per pound. That catch quota of 8 million pounds is down 15 percent from last season.

The Bering Sea snow crab fleet has taken 80 percent of its 19 million pound quota, about half of last year’s. That’s pushed market prices through the roof, topping $8.30 a pound at wholesale in both the U.S. and Japan, up 50 percent from last year.

Alaska produces only about 10 percent of the world’s snow crab, with most of the supply coming from eastern Canada, followed by Russia.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

ALASKA: Crabbers holding out hope for high prices after cuts

October 19, 2016 — Despite a grim beginning to the season, members of the crab industry are holding out hope for high prices and a late fishery.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries hasn’t yet decided whether to review harvest guidelines for Eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab and potentially open the season in January or earlier, or leave the fishery closed entirely for the next two years. Meanwhile, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game cut the quota for snow crab by 50 percent and for Bristol Bay red king crab by 15 percent.

Despite the cuts, crab industry stakeholders say the season for Bristol Bay red king crab is moving along at more than a healthy clip.

“Some good news from the grounds, the crab look good. They’re heavy. There’s a lot of small crab, females. Folks are seeing pots just plugged with crab — so full they can’t get another one in,” said Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, a crab harvesting cooperative with 188 members that together harvest 70 percent of Alaska’s crab.

Jacobsen said that given the density of the fishing, he wonders why the surveys that measure abundance didn’t pick anything up.“The reports I’ve got, maybe the people who aren’t doing so well don’t say anything,” he said. “There’s a lot of very optimistic reports from the grounds. I’m not sure what happened with the survey last summer.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: It’s time to talk crab season projections

September 30, 2016 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet in Anchorage from Oct. 5-11 to overview crab season projections, hear further discussions of halibut management, and decide what to do about a recent federal appeals court decision that will require more attention to salmon management.

The council will approve catch limits for the 2016-17 crab fisheries and review the stock assessment for the last year.

Stocks for both snow crab and Bairdi Tanner crab were down according to surveys in 2016, and stakeholders are holding their breath to see if the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will need to close fisheries if abundance doesn’t meet the department thresholds.

The crab fishing management plan, or FMP, requires federal scientists to set an overfishing limit, or OFL, and an acceptable biological catch, or ABC.

Based on these numbers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will determine a total allowable catch, or TAC, under its joint management with the council.

Read the full story at Juneau Empire

Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Announce Updated Seafood Watch Recommendations for King and Snow Crab in Alaska

March 2, 2016 — The following was released by the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers:

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® program has just released new and updated assessments on King and Snow crab from Alaska. Bristol Bay Red King (Paralithoides camtschaticus) crab from the Eastern Bering Sea has been elevated to a “Best Choice” by Seafood Watch. With this updated recommendation, all of the major crab fisheries in the Eastern Bering Sea, including two species of Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio and C. bairdi) and Blue King crab from St. Matthews Island (P. platypus) meet Seafood Watch’s “Best Choice” standard.

The updated Seafood Watch recommendations maintain the “Avoid” status for all crab fisheries in the Russian portion of the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Northern Sea of Japan. These “Avoid” listings reflect the fact that stocks are at critically low levels as a result of rampant illegal fishing and highly ineffective management.

“With these updated recommendations the Seafood Watch program is just confirming what we have known for years. King and Snow crab from Alaska is clearly the ‘Best Choice’ if you care about the health of the oceans and wish to support sustainable fisheries. We hope that consumers, retailers, and those in the food service industry will use these recommendations to make informed purchasing decisions and demand King and Snow crab from Alaska,” said Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Science & Policy Analyst Ruth Christiansen.

View a PDF of the release