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The Pacific Northwest Crab Industry Advisory Committee said in a statement issued Aug. 2 that 13 harvesting cooperatives, representing more than 80 percent of all quota shares in the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery, had signed on to a coordinated effort to reduce discard and handling mortality in the upcoming fishery.
"The collective response of the crab fleet was taken due to the high discards that occurred last year, and the threat of significant reductions in harvest quotas that could result," the advisory committee said, in the statement released in Seattle. "Historically, the fleet has retained between 95 percent and 98 percent of legal male crab," the statement said. "By taking decisive corrective action, the crabbing community hopes to see a return to these levels."
While there is no mandatory retention policy, the concept of high-grading - in which old-shell crab and those with barnacles are dumped overboard - was noted in the environmental impact statement for crab privatization plan as a potential issue, said Wayne Donaldson, the state's regional management biologist for shellfish for the western region of Alaska. That was one reason that observer coverage of catcher vessels doubled once the so-called crab rationalization program went into effect in 2005, he said.
Still, this summer, the state Department of Fish and Game issued a report stating that an estimated 5.8 million red king crab, including some 677,000 legal male red king crab, were discarded during the first season the fishery was privatized.
The highest previous discard rate of legal males, from 1999 through 2004, was 80,000 crab in the 2002 season, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists Doug Pengilly and David Barnhard.
The other discarded crab were females and males too small - called "sub-legal" - to be legally harvested.
The report lent credence to growing concerns of high-grading, the practice of retaining new-shell crab for processing, which is likely to garner a higher price in the marketplace.
"It is something we haven't had to deal with in this fishery before, because it hadn't occurred before," Pengilly said.
Pengilly said the state agency started getting some hints of this developing in the community development quota fishery in the last couple of years. In the fishery that began last Oct. 15, 19 to 20 percent of the legal male king crab caught were not kept, he said.
While nobody knows with certainty the mortality rate of discarded crab, the state assumes 20 percent mortality from handling and discard, he said. Should the current discard practice continue, "we would have to re-evaluate the harvest strategy," Pengilly said.
Donaldson agreed. "It's up to them (the industry) to solve it," he said. "If they don't solve it, and it's an issue for the long-term productivity of the stock, we will probably have to go to the Board of Fish and request a change in the harvesting strategy.
"Another scenario could be reduction to the catch level this year, based on what we believe the magnitude of the problem is," he said. "The bottom line for us is we have not made a decision yet on the harvest level for this coming year."
The National Marine Fisheries Service is currently conducting a survey to determine what harvest level to declare to sustain the fishery for consumption by commercial fishermen. The department should have the results by late August, Donaldson said.
Arni Thomson, executive director of the Alaska Crab Coalition, said processors want to resolve this problem, and other marketing issues as well. "Regardless of the economic circumstances, the industry recognizes the need for improved handling and reduced mortality to maintain long-term sustainability," he said.
Thomson said that while Alaska king crab has a good name, buyers offer less for old-shell crab or crab with barnacles on it. "The market is extremely sensitive to clean shell, but the meat (despite shell appearance) is every bit as good," he said.
"We have to put our best foot forward and market the crab. We have asked the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to help us, and ASMI is going to invigorate a campaign to promote Alaska king crab," he said.
ASMI spokeswoman Laura Fleming said the state agency's shellfish committee is working with retail and food service directors to put together a marketing proposal to talk about with the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board. The promotion would enhance efforts already in motion in the food service, restaurant and grocery businesses, she said.
The big problem, Thomson said, is Russian interests dumping their crab on U.S. domestic markets, often under the label of Alaska king crab. When supermarket chains selling Russian king crab under a generic label call it Alaska king crab, "it hurts the good name and quality brand name that we have spent almost 30 years developing," Thomson said.
Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.
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