The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently released catch limits for the upcoming Bering Sea crab seasons. Bristol Bay red king crab, Bering Sea snow crab, and Tanner crab seasons open on Thursday, Oct. 15.
The Bristol Bay red king crab total allowable catch is up over half a million pounds from last year, set at 3.4 million pounds this season.
The Tanner, or Bairdi crab, limit increased significantly to 32.1 million pounds, with most of that – 27.2 million pounds – in the western Bering Sea.
“It's been really refreshing to hear that the harvest levels are up for most species,” said Jamie Goen, the executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, an industry trade association representing crab harvesters in the Bering Sea.
“Overall, between king crab, snow crab, and Bairdi, all the stocks combined, crab is up 75% from last year, which is a big shift,” she said.
But while red king and Tanner limits are up, the snow crab harvest limit dropped by almost half from the previous year. This year’s catch is set at 5.1 million pounds, as the stock continues to rebuild after a massive crash closed the fishery for the first time in 2022.
Goen said since then, the fleet has declined from 60 vessels to 40, with most of those leaving the industry being independent and family-owned vessels.
“Second and third-generation fishing families are the ones that aren't as diversified as some of the more corporate vessels that might be owned by bigger companies,” she said. “So those are the ones that we're tending to lose in the fishery.”
She expects the increase in quotas this year to bump the fleet up to around 45 vessels for the season.
If they’re able to catch all of the crab in the water and prices are about what they were last year, Goen said it would be worth well over $250 million for the fleet.
