Alaskan fishers fear another bleak season as crab populations dwindle in warming waters
Crab fishermen in Alaska have been scrambling to stay afloat after two years of the Bering Sea fishery being closed or severely curtailed due to plummeting crab numbers
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — Gabriel Prout worked four seasons on his father's crab boat, the Silver Spray, before joining his two brothers in 2020 to buy a half-interest plus access rights for a snow crab fishery that's typically the largest and richest in the Bering Sea. Then in 2021, disaster: an annual survey found crabs crashing to an all-time low. The red king crab fishery was closed; the snow crab fishery cut to a tenth of the previous year's take.
After another bad survey last year, the red king crab fishery closed again and the snow crab fishery closed for the first time ever. Suddenly, Prout's optimism about being his family's third generation in crab fishing seemed misplaced.
“It’s very hard to find a way to keep going forward,” said Prout, 33. With almost all his expected income gone, he's scrambled ever since to scratch out a living by working as a salmon tender — using his boat to supply other boats and offload their catch.
Researchers are scrambling to understand crabs' collapse, with seas warmed by climate change as one theory. Preliminary data from this year's survey suggest another year of closed or severely limited fisheries, with decisions on crab catch limits expected in early October shortly before the season traditionally opens.
