The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said this week that it canceled the winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea for the first time, because of a decline in the crab population. The fishing industry described the cancellation as a crushing blow.
Biologists say that the warming of waters in the Bering Sea in recent years is a possible factor in the decline in the population of snow crabs.
The number of these crustaceans has dropped below the threshold for the opening of a fishing season, the Department of Fish and Game said in a statement, adding that the Bering Sea snow crab season, which normally starts on Oct. will be canceled this year. Fishermen and industry officials were upset by the state’s decision.
Miranda Westphal, a biologist with the state’s Department of Fish and Game, said Friday that she is investigating why the crab population is declining. “From 2018 to 2021, we lost about 90% of these animals,” she said.
Alaska is the fastest-warming state in the United States, according to the independent group of scientists Climate Central, which researches and reports on climate change. And rising temperatures in Alaska’s cold waters may be killing the crustaceans.
“Snow crabs are an arctic species,” Westphal said, noting that they need cold water to survive. According to her, between 2018 and 2019, the Bering Sea “was extremely hot, and the snow crab population kind of huddled in the coldest water they could find.”
When the water heats up, your metabolism increases, requiring more fuel, she said. “They probably starved to death.”
Westphal said illness could also have been a factor. “We don’t and will never really know why the crabs are gone,” she said.
Snow crabs, which have hard, rounded shells, are the smallest species commercially harvested in the Bering Sea, Westphal said. A male snow crab can reach a shell width of 15 cm, and females rarely grow more than 7 cm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The snow crab is found off the coast of Alaska in the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
About 65 boats regularly participate in the crab fishing season in the Bering Sea.
“It’s going to be 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 brothers in Kodiak, Alaska.
He said that before the collapse he was catching 225,000 to 340,000 kilograms of snow crabs on average each season.
Prout said he hoped the state could expedite “the disaster relief call we’ve presented.”
Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, the fishing trade group, said in a statement: “These are truly unprecedented and troubling times for Alaska’s iconic crab fishery and for the hard-working fishermen and communities that depend on them. “.
He predicted that crab fishing families will go bankrupt.
State officials said in the cancellation announcement that while they knew closing the season would be difficult for the industry and communities, the agency “must balance these impacts with the need for conservation and long-term sustainability of crab stocks.”
Westphal said he hoped the season break would “protect that portion of the population that will mate and produce more offspring.”
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