A Cordova District Fishermen United proposal urging a commercial king crab fishery for Prince William Sound will be up for discussion at the statewide king and tanner crab meeting of the Alaska Board of Fisheries March 8-11 in Anchorage.
The shellfish division of CDFU is urging the fisheries board to instruct the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to develop a harvest strategy that incorporates commercial catch per unit effort as its main survey method and open waters of the northern and western districts of Prince William Sound under a commissioner’s permit for a directed fishery.
That would help supply commercial CPUE data for ADF&G to develop a harvest strategy for a fishery that would have a major economic impact on Prince William Sound communities, the proposal said.
Fishermen participating in the Prince William Sound Tanner crab fishery are reporting high levels of king crab abundance of over 80 king crab in some pots, yet are not allowed to retain any of them under the current commissioner’s permit, CDFU said. The proposal also expressed concern that while the golden king crab fishery in Area E has been closed for over 30 years, ADF&G has not done a survey to assess those stocks since 2006.
Also, on the agenda for the March meeting are a number of other proposals for commercial, sport and subsistence crab fisheries in Cook Inlet, Kodiak, the Alaska Peninsula, Westward and Aleutian Islands districts.
Find a complete list of these proposals is online at https://tinyurl.com/yjmjoqwv.
