Surveys show Bering Sea's crab and pollock stocks are at healthy levels (Fish Radio)
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Fish Radio with Laine Welch] September 26, 2014
Bering Sea crab scientists and stakeholder met last week to discuss the outlook for Alaska’s biggest crab fisheries that open October 15th . The take away is that stocks of red king crab, bairdi Tanners and snow crab all showed big increases in mature sizes, based on data from the annual surveys. That has industry watchers predicting little, if any, changes to catches, said market expert John Sackton. The data showed some peculiarities though – a spike in water temperature might have redistributed the crabs into survey areas as they moved en masse to colder waters. That could discount stock increases. For 2014 the crab quotas were 8.6 million pounds for Bristol Bay red king crab; 1.6 million for Tanners, and 54 million pounds for snow crab.
Speaking of increases: Alaska’s pollock biomass may be at the highest level since 1982. Trawl and acoustic surveys both showed several big year classes coming into the pollock fishery – which accounts for 70% of the total Bering Sea harvest...
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