Graphic by Jieru Ye ‘23.
By Lily Benn ’24
Staff Writer
October to January is generally the optimal season for fishing and harvesting all crab species for food, a Southern Living Magazine article stated. This is when most individual crabs are at their largest and when populations are at their peak. A major crabbing industry is centralized in the Bering Sea in Alaska. Its snow crab harvest in particular brings in approximately 132 million dollars each year, according to a Time article. This October, however, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game determined that the number of crabs in the Bering Sea this season was too low to open the fishery.
According to the 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service trawl survey, Bering Sea snow crabs showed a significant decline in population numbers. A Time article reported that the snow crab population had dropped by 87 percent since 2018 — its count in 2018 was estimated to be eight billion, while in 2021, it was estimated to be one billion. The count this year, 2022, was low enough for their harvesting season to be canceled completely.
This decision impacts many local Alaskan crab fishermen and communities that depend on this industry for their income, an article from The Guardian explained. Jamie Goen, executive director for Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, explained in an interview with the Guardian that many crab fishing families are likely to go out of business during the period of time that is needed to help crab populations recover. According to CNN, the reason for this large drop in snow crab numbers is due to overfishing, a practice that has harmed many industries and ecosystems in the past. However, as explained by Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the term “overfishing” is only used because of the size of the population decline. In an interview with CNN, Litzow explained how the collapse of the population was not due to overfishing, but to human-caused climate change. He explained how the snow crab is a species that lives in water, usually less than two degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that the snow crab population cannot survive in the warming waters of the Bering Sea. According to CNN, temperatures in Alaska and around the Arctic have warmed up four times faster than ocean temperatures around the rest of the world. In a Time article, Wes Jones, the Fisheries, Research and Development Director of the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation, explained that this change in climate is also causing the snow crabs to change their behavior in order to survive. Crabs are pushed into smaller pockets of colder water to avoid the warm water where they cannot survive. According to Jones, this leaves the crabs more open to obstacles such as predation, disease and, in this case, cannibalization. With limited food available, some crabs have begun to eat each other, Jones explained.
The ADF&G reported that while information from crab industry stakeholders is crucial to their decision-making process, the crab population is not large enough to sustain a crabbing season. In response to this decrease in population and resulting economic decline, the ADFG reported that their focus was now on conserving and rebuilding the snow crab population for future harvesting seasons.