Tanner crabs range from Oregon to the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, as far north as Cape Navarin in Russia and west to Hokkaido, Japan. Snow crabs inhabit colder waters than tanner crab, but the ranges of the two species overlap, and where they occur together, they interbreed and produce hybrids. Snow crabs inhabit waters from Japan to the Bering and Beaufort Seas. Snow crabs also occur in the Atlantic Ocean from Greenland to Maine.
In my last post, I described the biology and life cycles of tanner crabs (Chionoecetes bairdi) and snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio). A valuable market exists for both species, and a robust but limited fishery occurs in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.
NOAA Fisheries, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and The Alaska Department of Fish and Game jointly manage the tanner and snow crab commercial fisheries. As with king crab, biologists manage the tanner and snow crab fisheries according to the “three S’s.” These are size, sex, and season. Fishermen can keep only male crabs over a specific size, and fishing is not allowed during the mating and molting seasons. These restrictions enable crabs to grow to reproductive age and preserve females so they can reproduce. Managers gauge crab abundance during the current season and then adjust quotas accordingly for the following season.
In 2005, the Crab Rationalization Program was implemented, directing fisheries managers to allocate shares of the overall quota of tanner and snow crabs among harvesters, processors, and coastal communities. Fishing vessels must have satellite communications systems, so the captain can report the number of crabs caught daily. This real-time reporting allows fisheries managers to monitor the catch and to close the fishery when fishermen reach the harvest limit.
Crab pots must have escape panels and rings, which employ biodegradable twine. When a fisherman loses a pot, the twine will disintegrate, rendering the pot incapable of trapping crab and other organisms. Regulations also require observers to join the crew and collect data on the catch and bycatch and document any violations on a randomly chosen twenty percent of all fishing vessels.
Happy Holidays! I won’t have a podcast episode or a blog post next week, but I’ll be back on December 29th with a post to review my year, make resolutions for next year, and most importantly, wish all of you a Happy New Year!
Whose bones lay scattered in the Kodiak wilderness? My latest novel, Karluk Bones, is now available.
Robin Barefield is the author of four Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. You are invited to watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
