Federal fisheries managers considered a red king crab savings area emergency rule request at their December meeting and instead decided to move forward with other options including potential closure of specific areas in the Bering Sea for pot gear fishing for Pacific cod.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), which met in Anchorage on Dec. 9, adopted a purpose and need statement and alternatives to consider. The alternatives include annual closure of the Bristol Bay Red King Crab Savings Area (BBRKCSA) to Pacific cod harvesters with pot gear in certain areas if the Alaska Department of Fish and Game did not establish a total allowable catch (TAC) for Bristol Bay red king crab the previous year.
The action came after extensive public comment from a diverse group ranging from the Freezer Longline Coalition to the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers.
The Freezer Longline Coalition, a trade association representing owners and operators of 19 commercial fishing vessels, said during testimony that exclusion from fishing in the red king crab savings area would have a detrimental impact on their fleet and would likely increase total mortality on Bristol Bay red king crab through localized predation by Pacific cod.
Chad See, executive director of the Freezer Longline Coalition, said many of their members are participants in the Alaska crab fisheries, who are also directly affected by the downturn in the Bristol Bay red king crab fisheries. Closure of that area would be challenging for the freezer longline fleet while doing nothing to benefit those crab stocks, he said.
See said that Pacific cod, the primary target of the freezer longline harvesters, are a major predator of king crab. “In weighing the impacts of specific gear types on (Bristol Bay Red King Crab), we found removals of predator species from crab grounds to be a perplexing omission from the analysis, given findings that predation by Pacific cod is a contributing component of their natural mortality,” he said.
Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers (ABSC), recommended that the council and National Marine Fisheries Service analyze the trade association’s emergency action request to close the BBRKCSA and Red King Crab Savings Subarea to all commercial fishing gears for the first half of 2023, as stated in their petition. Goen spoke specifically about unobserved fishing mortality due to interactions of crab with fishing gear and the amount of seafloor contact with pelagic trawl nets, the nets used for midwater trawling. They are generally much larger than those used for bottom trawling in groundfish fisheries.
The red king crab savings area was intended to be void of bottom contact by trawling in order to provide an area within the Bering Sea that is a refuge for king crab and their habitat, she testified.
Goen said later that there was a chance that Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo would favor closure of the red king crab savings area, but she was not hopeful.
Federal fisheries managers are not sharing the burden of conservation, she said. “They are not doing enough fast enough to help the resource bounce back. It is irresponsible especially when the science shows doing something would help, and they have means in their control to do now.”
