Thursday, October 8, 2015

Snow crab quota takes 40 percent hit

Fishery managers just posted the Bering Sea snow crab quota for the upcoming season, and the news isn't good.

At 40.6 million pounds, the quota is down 40 percent from last season.

The fishery opens at noon Oct. 15, but the industry usually waits until after the new year to harvest snow crab, also known as opilio crab.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everyone knows that Kings and Sockeye's favorite food is crab large.

50 million Bristol Bay Sockeye 2015?

Has anyone calculated just what all those extra mouths are supposed to eat? Some may say that it does not matter but I have news for you, those sockeyes eat the same things our jack kings are trying to eat. Both sockeyes and jack kings feed largely on crab larvae, only the sockeyes eat them when they are a quarter inch long and jack kings eat them after they are about a half inch long. All these extra sockeye are consuming most of our crab larvae before it can reach the half inch stage where a jack king can locate it. Our scientists are now telling us that 98 percent of our half inch or larger crab larvae have gone missing in the ocean. This should alarm even the non-fishing public to no end but do you hear anything about it?

http://peninsulaclarion.com/opinion/letters/2013-08-02/fish-and-game-needs-to-maintain-natural-salmon-ratios

Anonymous said...

When gutting salmon in Bristol Bay I never seen crab in their stomach.

Anonymous said...

Wow, this thread makes my head hurt.....10:19 you post a link about Cook Inlet and hatcheries when talking about big natural Bristol Bay runs (no hatcheries in Bristol Bay). So the natural BB sockeye are depleting the oceans now? That is a first for me.