But with so few smaller crabs around, the outlook for 2022 was grim. There were just enough adult crabs to meet the regulatory threshold to keep the commercial crabbing season open. “Then in 2021, we went out, and there was just nothing,” Litzow said. State officials also announced the cancellation of the Bristol Bay red king crab season for the second year in a row because of consistently low crab numbers.īut the 2019 survey revealed a much reduced population of small crabs, and the 2020 survey was nixed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Commercial landings last year of Alaska snow crab alone came to 44 million pounds and $219 million, according to NOAA data. 10, came as a devastating blow for local fisheries in a state where the seafood industry is an economic cornerstone. The decision to cancel, announced by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Oct. (Snow crabs are also found in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska.) “We’re still trying to figure it out, but certainly there’s very clear signs of the role of climate change in the collapse,” said Michael Litzow, shellfish assessment program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which runs an annual survey of Bering Sea snow crab numbers. Alaskan officials recently canceled the Bering Sea snow crab season for the first time ever after scientists discovered an unprecedented decline in crab numbers.
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