The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) and National Marine Fisheries Service released updates for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands prior to the crab fisheries opening on Oct. 15.

Snow crab stocks in the Bering Sea have rebounded to a nearly 50 percent increase compare to a year ago, while Bristol Bay red king crab stocks continue to slide. The total allowable catch (TAC) for the 2018–19 Bering Sea snow crab is set at 27,581 million pounds, with 24,822,900 pounds set aside for individual fishing quota (IFQ) and 2,758,100 pounds in community development quota (CDQ). Last year’s snow crab TAC was 18,961,000 pounds, down from the 2016–17 21,570,000 pounds.

Harvesters of Bristol Bay red king crab are allocated 4.3 million-pound quota, much less than the 6.6 million pounds permitted in 2017 and 8.4 million pounds in 2016. The red king crab allocation includes 3.9 million pounds of IFQ and 430,800 pounds for CDQ entities.

According to Miranda Westphal, area management biologist at Dutch Harbor for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the last time the Bristol Bay red king crab harvest limit was that low was in 1985, when the guideline harvest limit was set at 3 to 5 million pounds, and harvesters landed 4.09 million pounds.

Usually, harvests numbers are based on 12.5 percent of legal males, but this year it is calculated on 10 percent of that biomass. “We’ve got a continued downward trajectory for king crab stocks and we don’t see a lot of recruitment coming in,” Westphal explained. “The abundance survey is showing a continued decline for effective spawning biomass of legal males, females and sub-legals and we have low estimated recruitment, so we don’t see a lot of small juveniles coming into the system.”

ADF&G biologists said mature female abundance is more than the harvest strategy threshold of 8.4 million crab and the 2018-effective spawning biomass of 33,275 million pounds is over the threshold of 14.5 million pounds required for the fishery to open.

The western district for Tanner crab will open with a TAC of 2,439,000 pounds, down slightly from 2,500,200 a year ago. 

The eastern district remains closed, as it was in 2017.

Pribilof district red and blue king crab are closed due to continued low abundance. State biologists said there is considerable uncertainty surrounding precision of abundance estimates of these crab. The Saint Matthew Island section blue king crab fishery is closed for the season because those stocks were estimated to be below the federal minimum stock size threshold and consequently declared overfished.

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