October 8, 2013 — The pots are stacked and the boats are packed with crews craving fishing season’s most fruitful frenzy – the one-month, multimillion-dollar harvest of red king crabs from the ocean floors near Alaska’s shores.
Now, the dreariest catch: the federal shutdown means no crabbing permits are being granted to the boats’ skippers. Without those licenses, dozens of vessels will remain docked indefinitely, their captains legally barred from dropping baited traps, or "pots," on the season’s opening day, Oct. 15. That would, in turn, leave the crabbing industry reeling and would financially swamp hundreds of fishermen, who earn half of their annual pay during the four-week king-crabbing spree.
Thanks to Capitol Hill’s political snag, the Super Bowl of fishing seasons may be delayed or canceled, spawning global crustacean frustration, from wholesale markets and restaurants touting their superior shellfish to the world’s most crucial crab consumers – Japanese citizens who mark an annual, pre-winter holiday by giving and devouring the gift of red king crabs.
“Tens of millions of dollars are potentially at risk if we can't get the product to market in time for the holiday season in Japan,” said Mark Gleason, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, a trade association that represents most of the crab fishermen who work aboard 80 boats, some made famous through the TV show “Deadliest Catch.”
Fueled by its crab-hungry populace, Japan drives the season’s lucrative yet narrow business cycle, setting pricing and demand trends, Gleason said. To fill Japan's holiday appetites, the vast bulk of the catch must be hauled aboard, brought to shore, processed at U.S. plants and, ultimately, en route to that island nation by the third week of November.
Even if the partial government shutdown is lifted soon after mid-October – allowing now-furloughed federal workers at the National Marine Fisheries Service to begin issuing crabbing permits – the fleet will need three to five business days to gather those quota licenses and head to sea, shrinking an already-tight window to score fat crabs and big bucks, Gleason said.
And beyond that lost opportunity, the stationary vessels each will ooze about $1,000 per day in costs, he added.
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