After a 2012 Bering Sea snow crab season that saw unusually severe sea ice inhibit fishermen’s efforts to catch almost 89 million pounds of the shellfish, 2013 is shaping up to be much friendlier.
According to Kathleen Cole, a forecaster with the National Weather Service ice desk, this winter was unlikely to match 2012, even before it began. Despite some recent rumors of encroaching ice into the Bering Sea fishery, the situation is better than last year, she said.
“We’re just not going to have a year like last year. It’s going to be, by no means, that bad,” she said. “Last year was something that we’d never seen before, and hopefully something that we’ll never see again.”
The snow crab fishery season officially begins Oct. 15, but it doesn’t really pick up until after the Bering Sea king crab fishery meets its quota, said Chuck Trebesch, a fisheries biologist in Dutch Harbor. The snow crab season continues until either the quota is met or it closes 15 May.
