Article Category: All About Crab

Commercial harvesters and state biologists expressed optimism in late August that come October, crab boats would be at work in the Bering Sea, though they were mindful that the decision would be made at a federal fisheries meeting in early October in Anchorage. “I am optimistic we will have a Bristol Bay red king crab fishery and a bairdi fishery,” Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers said, “but the industry needs to stay vigilant on what we can do to help stocks recover.” “There’s always been a high demand for Alaska crab,” Goen added. “It’s a matter of having the crab to harvest.” Goen, a seafood industry veteran, was appointed in August to fill the Washington state seat on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that was left open by the death of former...

Sales were hot as autumn approached for fresh and frozen shellfish at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, with golden king crab legs and claws going for a teaser rate of $55.99, with Dungeness and Bairdi all ready to ship. “We are trying to get them to get a whole king salmon to go with it,” said fishmonger Stewart Wolfe, also the shipping manager at the world-famous market. Holidays—from Father’s Day and July 4th to Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s—attract the biggest demand for these succulent shellfish, whose abundance is dwindling with climate change and other issues impacting the world’s oceans. Overall, demand in the fall of 2023 was about the same as for the same months a year earlier, Wolfe said. Shellfish orders were averaging about five pounds. Pike Place fi...

Dungeness crab prices rose with increased market demand while domestic snow crab sales brought the lowest prices in five years this past summer, in a struggling commercial shellfish industry plagued by climate change, a global pandemic, supply chain issues and international politics. Prices for a diminished supply of wild Alaska snow crab meat were all over the board, from $74.95 a pound at Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle to $33.95 a pound at 10th &M Seafoods in Anchorage, while the seafood counter at New Sagaya in Anchorage offered Russian snow crab meat for $25.99 a pound. West Coast whole Dungeness crab was in the spotlight at Pike Place Fish Market, with intermittent sales dropping the price for two pounds of legs and claws from $69.98 to $52.49 and other retailers, like Cost...

Menus at top seafood restaurants these days from Anchorage to San Diego boast gourmet entrees from sockeye and king salmon to Pacific halibut and cod, plus Dungeness crab and a variety of crab cake starters. But those looking for an entrée of Bering Sea red king crab legs will find their listings on some of the West Coast’s finest restaurants few and far between, because of soaring prices. It’s the highest price in the marketplace for king crab “and I expect this year’s (price) to beat last year’s,” said Jake Jacobs, executive director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange in Seattle. “Prices have been climbing. It has been a really strange market with (the) COVID (pandemic) going on and it’s hard to tell what’s going to happen,” he said. “Based on what the fishermen said I am optimistic....