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 member Kenny Down in May. Her appointment is for the remainder of Down’s three-year term, which ends in 2026.
Meanwhile in Kodiak, Mark Stichert, a groundfish/shellfish fisheries management coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said it appeared things were on track for a red king crab season.
“There is cautious optimism,” Stichert said. “In the wake of the 2023 quota of 2.6 million pounds, we are seeing small increases in abundance.”
“It’s the biggest change we have seen since ADF&G closed the fishery for 2021-2022 and reopened last year, and it looks like we are on track for 2024 to be something similar,” he stated.
Last fall was the first time the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery was open after being closed in 2021 and 2022, and 31 vessels fished, down from 47 vessels in 2020, Goen said.
“Some vessels have sold, some are fishing other fisheries like cod or tendering, and some are tied at the dock until fisheries improve,” she explained.
Last year, about 30 to 35 fishing vessels participated in the limited Bristol Bay red king crab season, compared to a historic average of 60 to 70 boats, Stichert said. Last season’s Bristol Bay red king crab catch was consistent with a historical average weight of six to six-and-a-half pounds and clean shells, he said.
Environmental conditions, including water temperatures, do play a big role in many ways, but there’s no magic reasons why stocks are down, he said. The years 2018 and 2019 saw the warmest water on record in the Bering Sea.
“That is what resulted in the snow crab collapse,” he said.
Studies on the impact of water temperatures on red king crab are continuing at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Laboratory.
Stichert spoke in advance of a meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Crab Plan Team meeting in Seattle in early September, where results of a summer survey are presented. Those survey results provide the latest data for ADF&G to make its decision on whether to have crab fisheries and, if so, what the allowable harvest would be.
Steady Demand
The demand was clearly still there at retail shops like 10th & M Seafoods in Anchorage, where sales were steady on Alaska golden king crab, at $42.95 a pound, and jumbo red king crab legs and claws from Russia, also at $42.95 a pound. All of the crab was previously frozen.
Russian crab was coming from a large, diminishing supply of Russian king crab imported in advance of a June 2022 ban on the import of Russian seafood including Russian seafood processed in China.
An online report in February of this year by the Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center noted that in 2022 the U.S. imported about 85% of its seafood, valued at just over $30 billion. In 2021 alone, Russia exported $41.2 billion worth of crab, cod, pollock, salmon and other fish into the U.S., the report stated.
When the Biden administration issued an executive order banning the import of Russian-caught seafood in March 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there remained a major loophole in the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling Act, which labels seafood products as products of the country where they were last processed.
The Biden administration then issued a second executive order banning import of seafood harvested in Russian waters or by Russia-flagged vessels, even if that product was processed in a third country.
The Stimson Center promotes international security through applied research and independent analysis and policy innovation.
Retail Report
On the retail seafood scene, in late August, Carrs-Safeway stores in Anchorage were promoting pre-Labor Day sales of Canadian snow crab for $10.99 a pound for club members, compared to $21.99 for non-members, while Fred Meyer supermarkets in Anchorage offered the same snow crab for $9.99 a pound.
Online Anchorage retailer FishEx had Alaska red king crab legs and claws marked down from $79.95 a pound to $64.95 a pound, plus a 10% savings for orders of 20 pounds or more.
Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle had Alaska golden king crab legs and claws priced at $111.99 for two pounds, whole four-pound Alaska golden king crab for $349.99 and bairdi snow crab at two pounds for $59.99.
Other online retailers were selling king crab legs and claws from $38 to $86 a pound. The crab was all previously frozen.
Dungeness crab legs and claws were selling for $59.98 for two pounds, about $10 more than the same item a year ago, and demand was up over that period, Pike Place fishmonger Adrian Royal said.
Borealization
On Aug. 21, NOAA Fisheries released a report—also published in the online journal Nature Climate Change—in which scientists attributed the abrupt collapse of snow crab to borealization, or an ecological shift from Arctic to subarctic conditions during the marine heatwave of 2018-19 in the southeast Bering Sea due to human-caused climate change.
Cold-adapted species like snow crab are well suited to Arctic conditions. When borealization occurs, the ecosystem shifts to subarctic conditions that are less conducive to snow crab survival.
Such conditions instead favor warm-adapted species and temperature marine ecosystems, scientists said.
“What is particularly noteworthy is these boreal conditions associated with the snow crab collapse are more than 200 times likely to occur in the present climate than in the pre-industrial era,” said Mike Litzow, lead author and director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Centers Kodiak Lab.
“Even more concerning is that Arctic conditions conductive for snow crabs to retain their dominant role in the southeastern Bering Sea are expected to continue to decline in the future,” he added.
With further warming anticipated over the next two decades, results indicate that the Arctic characteristics necessary for snow-crab stock may become scarce in the southeastern Bering Sea. Litzow and his team said they expect to see Arctic conditions in only 8% of future years in the southeastern Bering Sea. The report said this percentage could decrease with higher warming rates expected in the future. If this occurs, it could potentially signal the northward displacement of the important commercial fishery from its traditional grounds.
Historically snow crab has been an important part of the Arctic community in the southeastern Bering Sea, with cold summer bottom temperatures during ice formation and Arctic communities dominated by bottom-dwelling invertebrates, including snow crab.
In 2018-2019, the snow-crab population experienced a decline greater than 90%, the new research paper notes. Previously, snow crab supported one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the Arctic, with the estimated ex-vessel value estimated at $227 million.
To measure the progression of borealization on snow-crab abundance, scientists analyzed changes from between 1972 and 2022 in ice cover, bottom temperature, primary production dynamics and community composition for phytoplankton, zooplankton and groundfish.
They found a decline in sea ice and an increase in the abundance of pseudocalanus copepod, bitter crab disease in snow crab, areas of spring open-water algal blooms, Pacific cod (a snow crab predator) abundance and summer bottom temperatures.
These are all indications, the report said, of a shift from an Arctic to a subarctic regime.
The report also ruled out trawl fisheries bycatch to explain the mortality associated with the collapse of snow crab because the estimated bycatch is orders of magnitude too small to explain thus level of mortality.
Surprisingly, the report said, thermal stress due to elevated ocean temperatures didn’t appear to be the primary issue affecting snow crab survival in those years. In laboratory studies, scientists found that juvenile snow crab were unaffected by temperatures of up to eight degrees Celsius.
At the height of the marine heat wave in the Bering Sea in 2018 and 2019 ocean temperatures in crab habitat remained below that critical threshold. Still, scientists suspect that warmer water temperatures increased the metabolism of the snow crab and that available prey in the wild were insufficient to meet their new caloric needs.
This effect may have been magnified by increasing crab density as the stock contracted to occupy shrinking cold-water habitat.
Litzow said it was really a combination of those factors that caused the collapse.
“All of these factors are a result of climate change brought about by human activity since the start of the industrial revolution in the early 1900s,” Litzow said. “They indicate a wholesale transition toward boreal conditions in the southeast Bering Sea during these warm years.”
There was, however, some good news for the future of snow crab in 2022.
Cooler Waters
During the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s annual bottom trawl survey, scientists saw a return to cooler water temperatures more typical of historic times, conditions that benefit snow crab.
They observed an increase in the number of juvenile snow crab, offering hope for a short term (in about five years) of recovery in the abundance of larger snow crab harvested in this fishery.
The report notes that these findings are dependent on climate model projections of future climate change, models that have performed well in predicting average global temperatures since the 1970s.
Even though model projections are less certain over regional scales, as is the case here, scientists don’t expect these Arctic conditions to persist in the region over the long term, the report said.
“It’s really important that fishermen, scientists, communities and resource managers recognize that one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world is changing—faster than anyone expected, Litzow said.
“The time to act is now,” he added, “to think about how we are all going to adapt.”
Margaret Bauman is an Alaska journalist and photographer with an extensive background in Alaska’s industries and environmental issues related to those industries. A long-time Alaska resident, she has also covered news of national and international importance in other states on the staff of United Press International, the Associated Press, and CBS News.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie@maritimepublishing.com