The state decision to reopen harvests for prized Bristol Bay red king crab provides only a temporary reprieve from long-term environmental and economic difficulties.
A red king crab is seen in the water at Kodiak in 2005. Surveys this year indicated that stocks in the Bering Sea are strong enough to allow a small Bristol Bay red king crab fishery after two years of closures.
Biologist Mark Stichert said the surveys suggest that the crash that forced two years of closure in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery, the major Alaska source for that highly prized seafood species, has bottomed out. “One single 30-minute tow dictated whether you meet the threshold or do not meet the threshold,” he told crab harvesters.
Bering Sea snow crab, with two specimens seen in this undated photo, support an iconic Alaska seafood harvest, but a crash in population since 2018 triggered the first ever closure of the fishery in 2022. That closure was extended for the 2023-24 season. The Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries are the first rationalized harvests in the nation to suffer such massive collapses, industry representatives said repeatedly.
In the Barents Sea on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, snow crab are recent arrivals, but they are thriving and supporting commercial harvests. “If you turn off the spigot and have no crab to catch, that’s going to be replaced by something else, and probably snow crab from someplace else in the world,” he said.The interrupted harvests make it difficult for buyers who previously bought and advertised the Alaska product, he said.
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