The Alaskan red king crab season is nearly finished, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game which published a report last week saying the season – thus far disappointing – was 99 percent culminated.
The quota this year was just 3.8 million pounds, down 12 percent from last year. This is the lowest quota since 1982 and Department of Fish and Game scientist Nathan Nichols said that 46,578 pounds, just over one percent, had remained in the water. As of last week, there was only one boat still bringing up crab pots, according to the report.
At the same time, average crab weight was slightly up from last year, at 7.14 pounds, compared to 7.1 pounds last year. This year’s average weight was the highest average weight in the fishery’s history.
However, this isn’t necessarily good news. Area Management Biologist Miranda Westphal cautioned that it is a sign that the fishery is aging.
“We’ve been seeing the same group of large legal males,” she said. “Not a lot of recruits coming into the fishery, and not a lot of recruits to the stock in general.”
Nichols cautioned that the fishery may not open next year.
“We are seeing a continued downward trajectory,” he said, although he conceded that final decisions would only be made after next summer’s survey of crab stocks.
Westphal agreed with Nichols’ assessment.
“We’ve been on a downward trend for quite a while,” he said. “We would expect that trend to continue, especially with the extreme environmental conditions. So we’d expect probably to have a closure next year or he following season.”
The last year there was no commercial Alaskan king crab season was 1994.
Meanwhile, this summer’s trawl survey of the Northern Bering Sea performed by the NOAA showed that the Norton Sound king crab fishery, which suffered a lackluster commercial season this summer, was moving to deeper water.
Lyle Britt from the NOAA, who led the survey, said that although there might be many reasons that the crab are in search of deeper waters, the most logical one was that they were searching for cooler temperatures. This year in Norton Sound saw surface temperatures of up to 20 degrees Celsius and bottom temperatures of 14 degrees Celsius.
Photo courtesy of Adele Heidenreich/Shutterstock
