Fall Alaska king crab harvest canceled (Metlakatla: rent, how much, unemployment rate)

[RDawg]

Originally Posted by Northrick

My wife and I love crab and the next few years are going to suck. We usually buy the 10lb box of king crab from Costco in Anchorage, which ironically is the Russian crab, and it used to be around $20/lb. I looked a couple of weeks ago and it was up to $34/lb. Too rich for our blood. I can only guess what it is going to cost next year if you can even get it at all.


Last crab I bought were dungeness.

Dungeness crab ain't nothing to sneeze at. It's not king crab, but it's still good eating.

[Northrick]

Originally Posted by RDawg

Dungeness crab ain't nothing to sneeze at. It's not king crab, but it's still good eating.

I agree, it's good or I would not have bought it. But red king crab is better.


I was in Safeway the other day and king crab legs and claws were $54 a pound! This is getting stupid. Who pays that?

[Metlakatla]

It's around $100 per pound at Pikes Market and from some direct retailers right now.

[cjs123]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

It's around $100 per pound at Pikes Market and from some direct retailers right now.

Holy cats. Is that a record?!? Seems to me it must be!

[rwjoyak]

Here's a media article out of Seattle about the price of king crab - https://komonews.com/news/business/w...climate-change.

[NORTY FLATZ]

Amazon has 10 pound boxes of legs.....for $680....

[Lodestar]

I went at Christmas to buy the King crab legs. Our regular grocer had them prepackaged for $75 a package which was an odd measure. Would have been enough for a mixed shellfish casserole.

Twice I went back and looked but just couldn't justify paying that for the meat and shells.

A week ago I asked the butcher if they'd managed to sell all that crab. He claimed they had but there hadn't been any action the day I was there. Apparently America is still living at the extravagant end of the food chain.

We lived in Tacoma for a while so I got spoiled for all the good Pacific seafood. Once I ordered a box of six Dungeness crabs but I won't do it again. The meat was waterlogged and a disappointment.

Well, maybe this hiatus will give the creatures a chance to replenish. They if we can just convince someone that working for a living is a worthy endeavor we can start harvesting them again. LOL

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Lodestar

They if we can just convince someone that working for a living is a worthy endeavor we can start harvesting them again. LOL

I'm in the seafood industry as an employer and don't share your attitude about the workers. You clearly have no idea of how hard these people work or that the struggles faced by many processors to find labor have nothing to do with your talking point.

You won't see cheap crab again in your lifetime. Actually, you won't see cheap salmon again in your lifetime either unless you buy the stuff raised in BC fish farms and processed overseas.

[Northrick]

Some interesting numbers. For those that don't know what "bycatch" is, it's other species being hauled along with species you are targeting. In the case of the Bering Sea trawl fleet, they drag huge nets that scoop up everything. They are after pollock, used to make fish sticks and fish sandwiches. They are not allowed to keep other species and that bycatch goes overboard - dead.


The “pre-approved” 2022 bycatch numbers for the Bering Sea trawl fleet set by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council are as follows:

• Chinook salmon bycatch: 45,700 fish (there is no hard cap for chums or other salmon)
• Halibut bycatch: 5.48 million pounds (For the Gulf of Alaska: 3.76 million pounds)
• Herring bycatch: 6 million pounds
• Snow crab (opilio): 5.99 million individuals (equal to 7.8 million pounds; the catch for crabbers is 5.6 million pounds)
• Tanner crab (bairdi): 3.07 million individuals (6,140,000 pounds; crabbers can take 1 million pounds)
• Red king crab: 80,160 individuals (520,000 pounds; the fishery is closed to crabbers for the first time in 25 years)

In some of these fisheries, the trawl fleet is allowed to kill and waste more fish/crab then the people targeting these species are allowed to catch.

[Metlakatla]

The trawlers take about 10% of the incoming kings (salmon).

https://www.nationalfisherman.com/al...ings-and-crabs