The Alaska Fish and Game Service announced this week that it has canceled its first winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea due to declining crab populations. Fisheries officials described the cancellation as a devastating blow.
Biologists say rising temperatures in the Bering Sea in recent years may be a factor in the decline of snow crab populations.Crab numbers now fall below threshold for opening fisheries, fish and game sectors Said The Bering Sea snow crab season, which normally opens on October 15, has been canceled for this year, the statement added.
The Crabbers and industry insiders were upset by the state’s decision to cancel the season.
Miranda Westphal, a biologist with the state’s Department of Fish and Game, said Friday that they’re investigating why crab populations are declining.
“From 2018 to 2021, we lost about 90% of these animals,” says Westphal.
Alaska is the warmest state in the United States, according to Climate Central, an independent group of scientists who research and report on climate change. Also, rising temperatures in Alaska’s cold waters may be killing crustaceans.
“Snow crabs are an Arctic species,” said Westphal, noting that they need cold water to survive.
She said that between 2018 and 2019, the Bering Sea was “extremely warm, with snow crab populations clustered in the coldest water they could find.
She said that warmer water increases metabolism and requires more fuel.
“They probably starved to death and didn’t have enough food,” she said.
Westphal said illness could also be a factor.
“The crabs are gone, so we don’t know and we never really will,” she said.
Snow crabs, which have hard, rounded shells, are the smallest species commercially caught in the Bering Sea, according to Westfal. Male snow crabs can reach her six inches in carapace width, and females rarely exceed her three inches. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Snow crabs are found in the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi Seas off the coast of Alaska.
About 65 vessels typically participate in the Bering Sea snow crab season.
“It’s going to be very devastating for small businesses like me and very devastating for the crab fleet,” said Gabriel Prout, 32, who runs a fishing boat business with his father and brother in Kodiak, Alaska. It will be a devastating blow,” he said.
He said he was catching an average of 500,000 to 750,000 pounds of snow crab each season before the collapse.
Prout said he hopes the state can expedite “the disaster relief request that we submitted.”
Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Clubbers, an Alaska trading group, said, This is a truly unprecedented and difficult time.”
She predicted that the crab fishing family would go out of business.
In announcing the cancellation, state officials said they knew the end of the season would be difficult for the industry and communities, but “balanced these impacts with the need for long-term conservation and sustainability of crab stocks. must be taken,” he said.
Westphal said he hopes to “protect this part of the population that mates and produces more babies” by stopping the season.