Billions of Snow Crabs Have Vanished From Alaskan Waters

Billions of Snow Crabs Have Vanished From Alaskan Waters

Billions of Snow Crabs , Have Vanished From Alaskan Waters.

CNN reports that last week, the Alaska Board of Fisheries and North Pacific Fishery Management, announced that the Bering Sea snow crab population was lower than the regulatory threshold.

As a result, the snow crab harvest in Alaska has been called off for the first time ever.

Benjamin Daly, a researcher who works with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says that in 2018, the snow crab population was at around 8 billion.

Benjamin Daly, a researcher who works with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says that in 2018, the snow crab population was at around 8 billion.

In 2021, it was only at 1 billion.

Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially.

So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies, Benjamin Daly, a researcher who works with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, via CNN.

Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for NOAA Fisheries, says climate change is largely to blame.

Snow crabs live in cold waters, but ocean temperatures are heating up due to global warming, Litzow says.

There have been a number of attribution studies that have looked at specific temperatures in the Bering Sea or Bering Sea ice cover in 2018, .., Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for NOAA Fisheries, via CNN.

... and in those attribution studies, they’ve concluded that those temperatures and low-ice conditions in the Bering sea are a consequence of global warming, Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for NOAA Fisheries, via CNN.

Closing the fisheries due to low abundance and continuing research are the primary efforts to restore the populations at this point, Ethan Nichols, an assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, via CNN