Saving Seafood

NOAA study links massive Bering Sea snow crab loss to climate change

August 23, 2024 — Scientists had previously linked the crash of the Bering Sea snow crab population in recent years to warming ocean waters. But a new study released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deepens the connection between human-caused climate change and the die-off.

Snow crabs are well suited for Arctic conditions. But Mike Litzow — the lead author of the report, which was published in the journal “Nature Climate Change” — said the southeastern Bering Sea is changing to more sub-Arctic conditions through a process called borealization. St. Matthew Island to the south, nothing north of 60 degrees’ latitude is included in the southeastern Bering Sea. It’s a process that’s also happening in terrestrial ecosystems in Alaska.

Read the full article at KMXT

ALASKA: Alaska’s snow crab season canceled for second year in a row as population fails to rebound

January 7, 2024 — Gabriel Prout is grateful for a modest haul of king crab, but it’s the vanishing of another crustacean variety that has the fishing port in Kodiak, Alaska, bracing for financial fallout; for the second year in a row, the lucrative snow crab season has been canceled.

“We’re still definitely in survival mode trying to find a way to stay in business,” he told CBS News.

When the season was canceled last year, there was a sense of confusion among the Alaska crab fisher community. Now, a sense of panic is taking hold in the state’s fisheries, which produce 60% of the nation’s seafood.

“It’s just still extremely difficult to fathom how we could go from a healthy population in the Bering Sea to two closures in a row,” Prout said.

And while he is barely holding on, others — like Joshua Songstad — have lost almost everything.

Read the full article at CBS News

ALASKA: Scientists say warming seas helped cause Alaska’s snow crab crash

November 18, 2023 — When scientists estimated that more than 10 billion snow crab had disappeared from the Eastern Bering Sea between 2018 and 2021, industry stakeholders and fisheries scientists had several ideas about where they’d gone.

Some thought bycatch, disease, cannibalism, or crab fishing, while others believed it could be predation from other sea animals like Pacific cod.

But now, scientists say they’ve distinguished the most likely cause for the disappearance. The culprit is a marine heatwave between 2018 and 2019, according to a new study authored by a group of scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mike Litzow is a co-author of the study and the director for NOAA’s Kodiak lab. He said starvation mediated by increased temperatures caused the collapse.

“Really the crab were not able to get the food they needed,” Litzow said. “They were just outstripping the resources that were available to them.” 

According to Litzow and his fellow researchers, the crab faced a number of compounding factors: First, higher temperatures meant increased metabolism so they needed more food; on top of that, there was less space for the crab to forage that food; and finally, the crab were just smaller than usual.

Researchers took data from the many possible hypotheses for the disappearance and they examined it alongside the data they have on the collapse. They examined possible mortality from a range of sources, including directed fishing from the snow crab industry as well as bitter crab syndrome — a fatal disease among crustaceans caused by parasites — and trawl bycatch.

“The take-home message is really that none of those other proposed mechanisms explains the collapse with the data we have,” Litzow said.

He said it’s tough to know what the collapse from increased ocean temperatures could mean for other species, but it’s safe to say we’ll probably see more marine heatwaves like this, and they’re likely to be bigger and more frequent, as the world continues warming.

Read the full article at KYUK

Finite supply fuels US market for king and snow crab, defying seafood category dip

November 15, 2023 — Limited availability of king crab and snow crab has boosted U.S. buyer interest, in defiance of a downward sales trend across the seafood category.

On 15 October, the red king crab fishery in Alaska’s Bristol Bay officially opened with a 2.2-million-pound quota, following a two-year closure. As recently as 2016, the total allowable harvest was set at 8.47 million pounds; in 1980, it was 130 million pounds.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ropeless gear shows promise in Canadian snow crab fishery, but full adoption faces challenges

November 6, 2023 — Canadian commercial fishermen are hopeful ropeless gear could be a solution to address concerns of right whale entanglements in snow crab fisheries, and recent trials are showing that innovative technology can work along the East Coast of Canada.

New ropeless gear that eliminates the vertical lines that can entangle right whales is one possibility, and fishermen have had positive experiences with it in trials along the East Coast of Canada.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Alaska’s snow crabs suddenly vanished. Will history repeat itself as waters warm?

October 31, 2023 — Garrett Kavanaugh grabs a fistful of freshly cooked crab and stuffs it into his mouth, a giant smile on his face, as his feet brace against the rolling sea beneath the deck of his boat.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

As the deck of his 58-foot-long boat rolls on the swells of the Gulf of Alaska, Kavanaugh, 24, cracks another crab leg between his tattooed fingers.

Long months of preparation and anticipation have led to this moment, as Kavanaugh and his three-man crew celebrate the first taste of the Dungeness crabs they’ve hauled up about 50 feet from the sandy ocean bottom off Kodiak Island.

In Alaska, last fall’s shocking collapse of the snow crab fishery shows that conditions for sea life can and are rapidly changing, even in ecosystems that have fed Indigenous people for thousands of years.

So far, this Alaska Dungeness crabbing season is off to a good start. But nothing is certain in these warming waters, where a new study concluded the snow crabs died out because the unusually warm water made their metabolisms run faster, causing them to starve. The study also found that many cod, which traditionally prey on young crabs, had left the area for the colder waters of the northern Bering Sea, “which rarely occurs.”

Read the full article at USA Today

In search of 10 billion missing snow crabs, scientists eye marine heat waves

October 23, 2023 — About 10 billion snow crabs disappeared from Bering Sea waters between 2018 and 2021, forcing fisheries to shutter in Alaska last winter and threatening the state’s economy. Now, scientists think they know what happened to them.

A study published Thursday in the journal Science suggests that the crabs likely suffered a mass starvation event touched off by seasons of extreme ocean heat.

The population crash — from its highest-recorded level in 2018 — shows how marine heat waves, which are made more likely by climate change, can scramble ecosystems and threaten human livelihoods that rely on ocean life.

Read the full article at NBC News

Billions of crabs went missing around Alaska. Scientists now know what happened to them

October 22, 2023 — Billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the ocean around Alaska in recent years, and scientists now say they know why: Warmer ocean temperatures likely caused them to starve to death.

The finding comes just days after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the snow crab harvest season was canceled for the second year in a row, citing the overwhelming number of crabs missing from the typically frigid, treacherous waters of the Bering Sea.

The study, published Thursday by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found a significant link between recent marine heat waves in the eastern Bering Sea and the sudden disappearance of the snow crabs that began showing up in surveys in 2021.

Read the full article at CNN

ALASKA: Alaska cancels snow crab harvest again due to population concerns

October 10, 2023 — The Bering Sea snow crab fishery will be closed again this year due to population concerns.

Crabbers from the Pacific Northwest who fish in Alaska had been watching and waiting for recommendations from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which met Thursday and Friday. Following the meetings, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Bering snow crab season will be closed for 2023-2024; Bristol Bay red king crab will open. Tanner crab will also be open for commercial fishermen.

Both the snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab seasons were closed in 2023. Crabbers and industry associations warned of the massive impact the decision would have on many small businesses, prompting calls by Congressional officials for an emergency declaration and federal aid.

Last year was the first time in history the U.S. snow crab fishery was closed. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the harvests were closed over concerns about long-term conservation and the sustainability of crab stocks.

Read the full article at KTVB

Wells Fargo issues neutral near-term outlook for US seafood sector

August 22, 2023 — A recent industry report from Wells Fargo has taken a decidedly neutral stance on the overall outlook for the U.S. seafood industry over the remainder of 2023, referencing positive news for certain species like snow crab but continuing woes for other market sectors to back up its mixed prediction.

The report, “Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute’s Industry Update – Q2 2023,” listed overall food prices and demand as major factors influencing Wells Fargo’s mixed outlook.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource