Officials in Alaska have cancelled the upcoming snow crab season due to a population drop in the Bering Sea, CBSNews reported. For the first time in state history, the fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest will not happen.
Snow crabs are cold-water species. State officials have said that an estimated one billion crabs have mysteriously disappeared in two years, which is basically a 90% drop in their population.
This will definitely reflect on the restaurant menus but scientists are also worried about the sudden population decline, which is likely to impact the health of the Arctic ecosystem.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s report ‘Climate Change Indicators: Marine Species Distribution’, which was updated in April, mentioned that in the Bering Sea, “Alaska pollock, snow crab, and Pacific halibut have generally shifted away from the coast since the early 1980s”.
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As quoted by CBSNews, Gabriel Prout, who relies on the snow crab population for his Kodiak Island fishing business, asked “Did they run up north to get that colder water? Did they completely cross the border? Did they walk off the continental shelf on the edge there, over the Bering Sea?”
Senior officials and Alaskan state biologists debated the harvest ban for days before making their decision in the face of crabbers’ pleadings for at least limited grabs to be permitted.
Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, said: “These are truly unprecedented and troubling times for Alaska’s iconic crab fisheries and for the hard-working fishermen and communities that depend on them.”
Mysteriously decline of snow crabs
Benjamin Daly, who is a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said that the snow crab population shrank from around eight billion in 2018 to one billion in 2021.
Daly told CNN, “Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially. So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies.”
Daly, who monitors the health of the state’s fisheries, told CBSNews in another report that “disease is one possibility” for the decline in population.
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Pointing to climate change, Daly said: “Environmental conditions are changing rapidly. We’ve seen warm conditions in the Bering Sea the last couple of years, and we’re seeing a response in a cold-adapted species, so it’s pretty obvious this is connected. It is a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water.”
Alaska is the fastest-warming state in the country, as per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is also losing billions of tons of ice each year, which is critical for the snow crabs.
Ethan Nichols, who is an assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told CNN: “Closing the fisheries due to low abundance and continuing research are the primary efforts to restore the populations at this point.”
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