September 30, 2024 — As the Pacific Northwest’s crabbing crisis continues, scientists are still working to determine if this year’s snow crabbing season will be canceled for a third straight year.
“The reality of the situation is that until we see more recruitment into that large male size class that the fishery targets, it seems in conversations that the industry is preparing for closure,” said Erin Fedewa, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Fedewa studies the species and collects population data that will eventually help determine the quantity crabbers can catch annually. However, the last five years have brought quite a few changes.
In 2019, there were record-high snow crabs in the Bering Sea and industry-wide optimism. In 2020, the annual survey was canceled, so no one knew the status of the crabs. Then, when Fedewa and her team returned to count the population in 2021, millions of crabs seemingly vanished.
What caused the swift decline?
Scientists at NOAA have since identified the main reason for the collapse as “an ecological shift from Arctic to sub-Arctic conditions in the southeastern Bering Sea due to human-caused climate change.”
It was discovered that the warmer water temperatures didn’t immediately kill the crabs, but when the waters got too warm, their metabolism increased. There wasn’t enough food to keep up with their caloric demand.
In addition to temperature changes, the team at NOAA noted other factors that indicate a shift from an Arctic to a sub-Arctic regime. They found a decline in sea ice and an increase in snow crab predators, a disease known to kill snow crabs, and areas of spring algal blooms.
The study also confirmed scientists’ initial beliefs that the population decline was not due to overfishing as the level of mortality was too high.