The North Pacific snow and red king crab seasons are canceled this year, affecting entire communities that support the industry. Factors such as dropping populations from overfishing and climate change contributed to crab harvests being suspended this year.

SMA alumna Jamie Goen is the Executive Director for the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. In a KIRO 7 news article Jamie said in 2018 there were a lot of small snow crabs in the ocean and things were looking really good. Below are Jamie’s comments from the KIRO 7 article:

“What they think happened is that those crabs required more calories, so they didn’t have enough out there to survive, given how many were out on the grounds and the population essentially collapsed,” Goen said.

She says there was increased disease in the crab population as well – due to the warming waters. It will take the current small snow crab 3 to 5 years to grow to a fishable size.

Goen says they are pushing Congress to speed up the fishery disaster process to save businesses, many of which have been in families for generations.

“We think the population and that our fisheries are closed in part due to climate change. That’s definitely playing a role. But there are many factors playing a role, including fishing impacts from other sectors that are continuing to impact the stocks even when our fisheries closed and we’re not fishing on them,” Goen said. “I think it’s going to take national policy change in the U.S. for how we do fisheries management, how we incorporate science, and how we adapt more rapidly to changes that are happening.”