October 15, 2014 — About 15 million pounds of Bairdis are up for harvest in the Bering Sea. That’s five times as much as last year.
Wednesday marked the opening of the Bering Sea crab season. Quotas are up almost across the board. But one species that usually takes a backseat is outshining the rest — and as KUCB’s Annie Ropeik reports, that’s got some fishermen changing their game plans.
Two years ago, there was no harvest for Bairdi tanner crab. Without enough legal females in the water, it wasn’t safe to fish.
When the season reopened last year, the quota was kept low. But now, Fish & Game biologist Heather Fitch says Bairdi seem to have bounced back:
"If you compare it to the whole history of this stock, it’s at one of its peak biomasses," she says.
And that’s made for the highest quota since 1993. About 15 million pounds of Bairdis are up for harvest in the Bering Sea. That’s five times as much as last year. Fitch says new survey data shows legal-sized Bairdi spread out all across the region.
It also shows a surprising amount of red king crab — about 50 percent more of all sizes compared to the past couple of years. Fitch says it’s almost like they came out of nowhere.
"Just based on not seeing it come into the population, it does raise a lot of questions as to — where have these crab been? Why have we not been seeing them?" she says. "I would say it raises more questions than answers."
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