The issue pits a multibillion-dollar industry against Western Alaska subsistence communities struggling with record-low salmon returns — with climate change in the background.

Earlier this month, commercial snow crabs started hitting Unalaska’s docks again, for the first time in nearly three years. The Bering Sea snow crab fishery reopened in mid-October, after billions of the crab disappeared and the fishery was shut down in October 2022. This season’s first catch was delivered on Jan. 15. Opilio, or snow crab, is generally fished in the new year and into the early spring. The season runs through the end of May.

This season, the Bering Sea snow crab fishery opened for the first time in two years, and the first boats began delivering to processors on Jan. 15. But the Trident Seafoods facility in St. Paul — which the company calls the “largest crab processing plant in the world” — isn’t taking any crab.

Unalaska's U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit is investigating a fishing vessel that ran aground near Iliuliuk Bay. The F/V Northern Endurance was partially beached about three miles from downtown Unalaska, near Little Priest Rock on Thursday and was pulled free by the emergency response and salvage company Resolve Marine Friday morning around 9 a.m., according to Commanding Officer Lt. Lawrence Schalles.

Unalaska’s U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit is responding to a distressed vessel near the island’s landfill.The F/V Northern Endurance ran aground near Iliuliuk Bay along Summer Bay Road sometime Thursday morning. The Unalaska Fire Department responded to the incident around noon.

Trident Seafoods’ St. Paul processing plant won’t open to take snow crab deliveries this season. But the Pribilof Island community will still see some economic benefits from the harvest, thanks to a new agreement between the cities of St. Paul and Unalaska. The Unalaska City Council unanimously approved a resolution at a special meeting on Jan. 3 that will allow snow crab, or opilio, that’s normally processed by Trident in St. Paul to come to Unalaska instead. St. Paul will receive the seafood taxes and fisheries business taxes associated with that portion of the harvest, like they normally would.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will buy up to $50 million worth of Alaska pollock, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. The estimated 15 million pounds of pollock will go toward supplying food banks and other food-aid programs around the country.

International shipping and logistics giant Maersk has confirmed it will cease transpacific operations in Alaska by February. Terminals in Dutch Harbor and Kodiak are on the chopping block.

The Bering Sea pollock fishery is getting a 6% increase in its total catch limit next year. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Friday approved 2025 catch amounts for Alaska’s federal fisheries, setting the Bering Sea pollock fishery at 1.375 million metric tons—up from 2024’s 1.3 million.