Alaskan officials have canceled the upcoming snow crab season, due to population decline across the Bering Sea.
The fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest would not happen, while the winter harvest of smaller snow crab has also been canceled for the first time.
The causes of the population collapse are being researched but likely include increased predation and stresses from warmer water, which the US Environmental Protection Agency said might have prompted the crabs to shift away from coasts.
Photo: Bloomberg
“In the Bering Sea, Alaska pollock, snow crab and Pacific halibut have generally shifted away from the coast since the early 1980s... They have also moved northward by an average of 19 miles,” the federal agency said.
The Alaska closures reflect conservation concerns about both crab species following bleak summer population surveys. The decisions to shut down the harvests came after days of discussions among Alaska state biologists and senior officials, who faced crabbers’ pleas for at least small takes to be allowed.
“These are truly unprecedented and troubling times for Alaska’s iconic crab fisheries and for the hard-working fishermen and communities that depend on them,” said Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, a trade association.
“Second and third-generation crab-fishing families will go out of business due to the lack of meaningful protections by decisionmakers to help crab stocks recover,” she added.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) released a statement saying that “management of Bering Sea snow crab must now focus on conservation and rebuilding given the conditions of the stock.”
Bering Sea snow crab populations declined after a 2019 warming that scrambled the broader marine ecosystem. Last year’s snow crab harvest of 2.54 million kilograms was the smallest in more than 40 years.
Within the limits of a federal management plan, Alaska determines how many crab are caught each year.
A scientific model of the snow crab population reviewed by the federal North Pacific Fishery Management Council last week indicated there might have been enough this year for a small harvest.
However, Ben Daly, an ADF&G research coordinator, said the model has struggled to account for the dramatic population decline after the 2019 warming, and state officials were concerned it might not be accurate.
“We have extreme conservation concerns about the population. We have serious doubts about the model,” Daly told the Associated Press.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS