Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government

The recent closure of the Bering Sea snow crab and Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries has some of Western Alaska’s coastal towns taking a hard look at their futures, and one small island is bracing for a huge hit. The Pribilof Island of St. Paul runs on snow crab — also known as opilio crab. The community’s Trident Seafoods is one of the largest crab processing plants in the world. So when fisheries management officials announced the species “overfished” and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shut down snow crab for the first time in the fishery’s history in October, City Manager Phillip Zavadil knew the community needed to act fast. “We're trying to get creative and have people understand that this is going to happen more and more, and that we need to address it,” Zavadil said. “We can do something now, instead of waiting for next year, when we don't have any funding or we can't provide services.”

Ravn Alaska has partnered with the Food Bank of Alaska to help provide meals to Elders on St. Paul Island.Andronik Hanson is the food bank coordinator for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island — the local tribal government. He said shipping costs for food can get expensive on an island in the middle of the Bering Sea.“The big thing they’re doing is donating freight to get the boxes,” Hanson said.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council often flies under the radar, meeting in dimly lit conference rooms and delving into technical questions about…