October 8, 2019 — With the fishing season starting next week, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has released crab quotas for Bristol Bay and the Bering Sea.
The total allowable catch for red king crab is 3.8 million pounds. That’s about 12 percent less than last season, which was already the lowest since 1996.
Meanwhile, the tanner crab season has been closed entirely due to below-threshold estimates of mature males.
Managers have also canceled the St. Matthew Island blue king crab fishery, which has been declared “overfished,” and continued the longtime closures for Pribilof Island red and blue king crab, which have fallen below federal minimums for two decades.