An important update regarding Alaska snow crabs

Dr Evil has finally built his under sea lair under the North Pole. He has taken the snow crabs as his evil minions.

 

Snow crab research and the affect of a warming Bering sea and the receding sea ice has been studied for many years. Deeper dive pdf for those interested.
https://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/CM Doccuments/CM-2007/B/B1207.pdf

and:Recent shifts in northern Bering Sea snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) size structure and the potential role of climate-mediated range contraction - ScienceDirect

 

Probably would have seen it, at least on Satellite

 

It’s not illegal harvesting, that doesn’t get you a 90 percent drop in just a few years.
It’s warming waters or some pathogen. Really can’t be much else.

 

Or both (a pathogen because of warming waters). But I'd guess they would know if it was a pathogen because they would pull up some infected crabs as part of the survey, so it seems likely that the crabs just moved due to changes in currents or water temperature due to warming.

 

should they get a bail out to preserve the industry? the belief of those in the industry is that bottom trawls are destroying crab stocks and many believe they are also destroying the king (chinook) salmon stocks. Trawlers drag the bottom up to midstream and catch everything in the way of the net and killl many crabs left on the bottom injured to die by the nets tumbling them over and breaking off legs. Bycatch is supposedly regulated but cameras are not required and inspectors are few and only work 8 hours a day. It just so happens that the 8 hours they work are usually boat maintenance or net setting periods. Trawlers need much stricter regulation.

Commercial and subsistence harvesters speak out against trawler bycatch of chinook salmon (ktoo.org)

Trawler bycatch debate heats up after Alaska records dismal 2021 chinook salmon returns (adn.com)


Fisherman say ending Alaska red and snow crab fishing will devastate families (msn.com)

"This decision just destroyed a fishing business of over 50 years and the crew that have a combined 10 years invested in it," said Joshua Songstad from the F/V Handler, one of those directly affected in a news release from the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. "Our crew of six has a combined 16 children to feed. No fishing model accounts for that."

ADFG officials said they were balancing the impact on the fishing industry with the need for sustainability of crab stocks.
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"We're going to have to let people go because there's no work and we've lost the ability to make money for the upkeep of the vessel," said Andy Hillstrand from the F/V Time Bandit and the TV show Deadliest Catch. "Out of the 60-vessel crab fleet remaining since we consolidated years ago, we could lose up to half or more with this decision."

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council did not do enough to protect the red crabs, according to Jamie Goen, Executive Director for Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. Fisherman asked the council last year to close a bottom trawl to protect a large number of female red crabs. They did not, she said.

 

No chance that could be a reason. My guess is the crabs noticed an increase of water temperature of .03 degrees and immediately fled do to their shells combusting

 

Did he have frickin' lasers mounted to their heads?

 

I actually did some reading on this last month because I was heading to Alaska on vacation. One of the working theories is this: There's typically a boundary layer of VERY cold water, just above freezing, near the bottom. Young crab live below this cold layer, which operates something like a barrier, keeping cod and other predators from feasting on the young crab whose shells are not hard enough to provide defensive protection. With climate change and warming oceans, that cold boundary layer is thought too interrupted, incomplete, or missing altogether in areas, allowing the young crab population to be decimated. Couple that with some migration towards colder water, and there's no crab for the Bering Sea crab fleet.

 

Trawlers aren’t helping, but they didn’t just turn up in the last 2 years when the stock suddenly disappeared.

 

It's not because billions of crabs, almost 90 percent of the usual population, have disappeared. It's because ...


Fox News host blames “climate crazies” for cancellation of Alaska snow crab season

 

Ok, but when Maine burns down from forest fires, I'm blaming you

 

They have increased in numbers and expanded their range. Allowable trawler bycatch (tons of crabs) is more than quota to crab fishery. The rules and enforcement mechanisms for Canadian and US trawlers are not sustainable and stocks of fish and crab will continue to collapse until bycatch issue is addressed. It impacts halibut, rockfish, salmon, and crab. If that means that price of fish goes up then so be it. Halibut stocks are also getting wiped out so much that longliners are having problems and rec or guided fishing limits have been cut drastically. Same show in gulf of mexico for grouper and snapper stocks.

Alaska lawmakers in both parties demand action on excessive fisheries bycatch

In the Bering Sea crab fisheries, trawl bycatch for 2021/22 is higher than what the crabbers can take.

A mishmash of numbers show that trawl caps for snow crab, for example, are 5.99 million individual crabs, while the catch quota for the crab fleet is 5.6 million pounds. At an average weight of 1.3 pounds, the trawl snow crab bycatch could total 7.78 million pounds.
For Bristol Bay red king crab, closed for the first time in 25 years, trawlers are allowed 80,000 animals totaling more than 500,000 pounds.

 

It's Fox (not really) News, accuracy and truth are irrelevant, it's what sells that matters. Although a different host, the same explanation applicable to Tucker Carlson also applies to Jessie Waters.
You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyers

 

So from what I'm hearing it's a reduction of sea ice and an Eco System change or Trawling or a combination of both.

But it really doesn't matter does it?

If they are gone they are gone, just like the water behind Hoover Dam or the Mississippi River.

We humans are too busy pointing fingers and spinning political BS to get out of the way of the train about to run us over and turn us to goo.

 

This is going to absolutely destroy some towns and livelihoods in Alaska. Most crabbers work only around the season and have no other source of income. And it's not like there are a bunch of options for funding employment in remote Alaskan areas. And then the towns survive on the outskirts of the crab industry like canning, shipping, etc. This is going to be really bad.

 

I’m not saying it’s nothing, I’m saying every biologist’s opinion I have read says the warmer water is likely the primary driver.