Alaska Department of Fish and Game cancels snow crab season for 1st time due to population collapse

[essentialsaltes]

Alaska will cancel the upcoming winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea for the first time, and bar fishers from catching king crabs in the Bristol Bay for a second consecutive year, because of a sharp decline in their estimated population.

The number of juvenile snow crabs was at record highs just a few years ago, before some 90 percent of snow crabs mysteriously disappeared ahead of last season.

Alaska’s crab fishing industry is worth more than $200 million, according to a report by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which promotes seafood. The state supplies 6 percent of the world’s king, snow, tanner and Dungeness crabs, per the institute.

 

[wing2000]

: (

 

[mala]

gosh who could possibly have seen this coming?!?!

 

[durangodawood]

People better learn to like tofu..... grown on the vast soy farms of formerly Amazon rainforest.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Scientists have more evidence to explain why billions of crabs vanished around Alaska​

Fishermen and scientists were alarmed when billions of crabs vanished from the Bering Sea near Alaska in 2022 [i.e. the OP]. It wasn’t overfishing, scientists explained — it was likely the shockingly warm water that sent the crabs’ metabolism into overdrive and starved them to death.

But their horrific demise appears to be just one impact of the massive transition unfolding in the region, scientists reported in a new study released Wednesday: Parts of the Bering Sea are literally becoming less Arctic.

The decline of the Alaskan snow crab signals a wider ecosystem change in the Arctic, as oceans warm and sea ice disappears. The ocean around Alaska is now becoming inhospitable for several marine species, including red king crab and sea lions, experts say.

The Arctic region has warmed four times faster than the rest of the planet, scientists have reported. Litzow called what’s happening in the Bering Sea a “bellwether” of what’s to come.

“All of us need to recognize the impacts of climate change,” he said. “We pay a lot of attention to this for good reason — because people’s livelihoods depend on them.”

 

[RileyG]

Oh wow. Hope they can reproduce and be replenished. Billions? Mind blowing.

 

[loveofourlord]

For a second I thought this was a tv show cancled.

My sister tells the story of prince rupert fishermen that would come in and destroy your display racks if you had farmed fish there because they saw it as destroying their livliehoods since they couldn't fish unlimited any more, and were restrictions on how many fish they could catch and couldn't give the jobs to their kids.

Ignoring that if there are no fish there is no fish for their kids to catch.

 

[Pommer]

Anchovies are getting more difficult to find too.

 

[loveofourlord]

Anchovies are getting more difficult to find too.

yeah but no loss there, no idea why anyone eats them j/k.

But on a less silly note, it's kinda annoying how few seem to care, rather get upset about the solution then the problem. Seems to be the case with so many htings.