Personal use king crab quota pinched

Robert Monteith

January 29, 2009.

The Board of Fisheries has sided with commercial vessel owners on policy regarding red and blue king crab harvest. They voted unanimously Tuesday to accept a proposal by the Petersburg Vessel Association (PVA) on the matter. PVA petitioned the board to reconsider a management technique that reallocated the commercial crab quota to personal use fishermen in the case of a commercial closure. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has closed the commercial king crab fishery since 2005. Personal use fisheries were closed early in 2007 due to low numbers and the season was canceled all together in 2008.

Groups representing commercial interests made the argument that those crab needed to remain in the water in order to rebuild the weakening stock, rather than ending up on a local dinner table.

Meanwhile, another proposal came before the board this week that sought to end commercial participation in the 11A king crab harvest. That proposal was put forth by Territorial Sportsman, a Juneau-base group. The group maintained that the fishery was an important sustenance fishery for Juneau area residents and that there isn’t enough biomass for commercial interests as well.

When both fisheries were operating together, management tended to favor the personal use fishery with around 60% of the harvest. That wasn’t the case this week as board members sided with commercial users.

Board members indicated concern that the personal use fishery was still taking 100% of the recommended harvest for any given year, leaving little chance for stock numbers to increase in the future.

“This proposal would essentially leave that 40% in the water to help try and rebuild the stock. From a conservation of the resource point of view, that made a whole lot of sense,” said Board Member Howard Delo.