Fall Alaska king crab harvest canceled (2015, move, oil)

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by columbusboy8

What's a personal use king crab fishery?

It means that locals can go out and set their pots during the opening, catch some crab and bring them home to eat. Individuals are not allowed to sell their catch. No commerical harvest.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

........., found that snow crab stocks were down 90 percent. The season opened and the total allowable harvest went from 45 million pounds to 5.5 million pounds. ........

It can't go on forever, the use of nature as a free good. 45 million pounds of crab removed every year by Americans, probably that much again by Russia and Japan. You keep removing all the breeding stock and the species collapses. That is just one species. Other species treated the same way, grab as much as you can while it still exists.



It isn't global warming, it is over-fishing year after year after year.

[Northrick]

Originally Posted by columbusboy8

From $20 to $34 is "ONLY" a 70% increase. No worries, because our beloved president told us about 8 MONTHS ago that this horrible inflation is just transitory and not to worry. PLUS, we now have his beloved Build Back Better (retitled, Inflation Reduction Act to fight inflation!) Hang in there, America, building back better takes time!! And if you make less than $400,000 per year, like me, he and Senator Manchin have sworn that you will absolutely NOT see your taxes increased, at all! WHEW!! I'm thankful for that!

Nice political rant.


However, none of that has anything to do with the price of crab. Supply and demand. Slash the supply by 90% and even with less demand the price is going to go up - a lot.

[Metlakatla]

No, the oceans are warming.

Harvesting crab isn't allowed during mating and molting seasons, and harvesting females isn't allowed at all — only males over a certain size. Crab harvesting in Alaska goes by the "three S's" — size, sex, and season. It's not a free-for-all out there.

[Metlakatla]

Just saw this on Alaska News Source:

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/20...DsVpDb_x7KivKQ

[HodgePodge]

The deep sea gold is running out.

Just like how greed killed the Cod fishery on the east coast because nobody cared about the overharvest for decades to the point of almost no return.

It's probably a combination of overharvest and sea changes that we have no idea is happening due to the constant degradation of the earth. Be it global warming, worldwide plastic pollution, overharvest of pretty much anything and everything that can make $$$ (ie: overharvesting ocean krill for our damn omega 3 pills).

I'm guessing if you still want a taste of king, snow crab, tuna and other major ocean delicacies... eat them now while it's still around and not $1000 a pound.

[TamaraSavannah]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

Current theories point to an overly warm Bering Sea. That can impact invertebrate populations (and how accessible they end up being to crabbers) in multiple ways. And why would the Bering Sea be warming? Take a wild guess...

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2021...ng-bering-sea/

And Japanese reactors? What have they done to that region?

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

No, the oceans are warming.

Harvesting crab isn't allowed during mating and molting seasons, and harvesting females isn't allowed at all — only males over a certain size. Crab harvesting in Alaska goes by the "three S's" — size, sex, and season. It's not a free-for-all out there.

And what harvesting rules do the Russians and the Chinese and the Japanese follow?

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

And what harvesting rules do the Russians and the Chinese and the Japanese follow?

Surprisingly similar ones.

Some of it's per international agreements such as the Agreement on Port State Measures.

There's a conspiracy theory or two out there about how the Bering Sea's crab population crashed due to illegal harvesting by some mysterious "they" from whatever country du jour is the most evil at the moment. A couple of PETA offshoots have taken that theory and run with it for fund-raising purposes. Conspiracy theories are always good for separating the weak-minded from their spare change. Every now and then they catch an illegal ship, which just fuels the conspiracy fire, but this is far bigger than the black market.

People need to stop politicizing climate change and realize that it's threatening our food supply. Everyone involved in North Pacific seafood knows that the oceans are getting warmer; doesn't matter if they're MAGA or flying a social democratic flag with Bernie Sanders' picture on it, we know it's real because we're seeing it happen in real time with our own eyes. The rest of the world better get on board before you all starve to death. It's probably too late, though.

[Lodestar]

Don't forget the Fukushima nuclear accident and the effects it is having on sea and human life.

I see a university study stated that limits on seafood sales are affecting researcher's abilities to study the full extent of the damage. https://www.researchgate.net/publica...hima_Fisheries

Japan has decided that it's safe to release more radioactive water into the ocean.https://www.thecordovatimes.com/2022...k-ed-by-japan/

What else can they do with it?

I have personally seen the damage the accident has done (in conjunction with other human factors) to the world's second largest reef in the Caribbean.

And I recently read that there has been an influx of king crab into UK waters.

Global warming? Overharvesting?

All these factors are intertwined and complex.