Tag Archives: Alaska crabbers
Alaska crabbers get creative with pop-up sales, but industry’s fate uncertain
With Alaska’s Bering Sea snow crab fishery shut down for the second year in a row, crabbers are having to make tough decisions and find creative ways to earn income, like selling direct to Anchorage consumers, sometimes in parking lots. A hand-painted sign on an Anchorage street corner and a hanging sign with the words “Live Alaskan King Crab” were enough to draw in customers to a Spenard parking lot that had become home to one of the shellfish pop-up sales. The live crab sale was in its fourth day on Nov. 2 and had already sold more than three-quarters of the 700 red king crabs hauled out from the Bering Sea. In an attempt to make up some lost income, third-generation fisherman Gabriel Prout brought red king crab to Anchorage to sell directly to consumers. Photos, >>click to read<< 09:16
Crabbers receiving record prices for low catch
The year’s first red king crab fishery at Norton Sound has yielded 17,000 pounds Alaska crabbers are hauling back pots from the Panhandle to the Bering Sea, and reduced catches are resulting in record prices for their efforts. The year’s first red king crab fishery at Norton Sound has yielded 17,000 pounds so far of its nearly 40,000 pound winter quota for more than 50 local fishermen. The crab, which are taken through the ice near Nome, are paying out at a record $7.75 a pound. A summer opener will produce a combined catch of nearly half a million pounds for the region. Red king crab from Bristol Bay also yielded the highest price ever for fishermen, averaging $10.89 per pound. That catch quota of 8 million pounds was down 15 percent from the previous season. The Bering Sea snow crab fleet has taken 80 percent of its 19 million pound quota, down by nearly half from last year. That’s pushed market prices through the roof, topping $8.30 a pound at wholesale in both the U.S. and Japan, compared to over $5.50 per pound a year ago. continue reading the article here 13:56
Coming season cuts and cancellations are causing anxiety for Alaska crabbers
“I’m scared,” said Simeon Swetzof, mayor of St. Paul, a central Bering Sea island with considerable crab dependence. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” The Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed the 2016-17 Bairdi or tanner crab season on Oct. 5, following a 15 percent cut in the harvest quota for Bristol Bay red king crab and a 50 percent cut in the snow crab fishery. Without intervention from the Alaska Board of Fisheries, requested by tanner crab stakeholders, the millions of pounds and millions of dollars of Bairdi will remain in the sea. Last year, the fishery’s total ex-vessel value was $45.3 million. Crab stocks are managed jointly between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The North Pacific council, one of eight councils that manage fisheries from three to 200 miles off the coast, sets the overfishing limits and annual catch limit for crab. ADFG then sets the total allowable catch, or TAC. Tanner crab was one of two stocks the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration charted as having a declined biomass. In 2015, the biomass prediction for tanner crab was 163 million pounds. This year, surveys chart a drop down to a biomass of 100 million pounds. Read the story here 12:02
This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch … Alaska crabbers sign on for the biggest survey ever.
Alaska’s golden king crab fleet plans to undertake the biggest survey ever on the entire range of the Aleutian Islands golden crab stock. It covers an 800 mile span from Dutch Harbor to Atka. Listen, and read more here 15:34
