ADF&G will explain Bering Sea crab catch limit math Oct. 7

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will review its 2026/27 total allowable catch calculations for Bristol Bay red king, Bering Sea Tanner and Eastern Bering Sea snow crab at a public meeting Wednesday, Oct. 7. The state first decides whether each fishery opens under its harvest strategies, then sets a TAC, the annual catch target, for the ones that do.

The virtual industry meeting starts at 9 am AKDT on Zoom (meeting ID 826 0711 2713, passcode 028450). Materials post on the department's Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands shellfish management page the day before. Mark Stichert, the regional shellfish manager, is the contact at 907-486-1842.

On Sept. 30 the department selected every preregistered catcher vessel in these fisheries for observer coverage, noting that selection "does not imply a fishery will open." Under the partial-coverage system, vessels not assigned an observer get waivers; vessels that are assigned must carry one for all fishing. Operators must give Saltwater Inc., the state-contracted observer provider, at least 10 days' notice before departure (907-539-2548) or risk delays or enforcement action, and must notify the company if they will not fish. The preseason registration notice said TACs would be announced in early October; Friday's notice gave no figures or timing, which is the gap Wednesday's meeting is meant to fill.

Last season's limits, according to a department update to the Board of Fisheries, were 2.68 million pounds of red king crab, up 16 percent; 9.3 million pounds of snow crab, up 97 percent and including a 1-million-pound hybrid add-on, after a 2024/25 reopening at 4.72 million pounds; and Tanner limits of 1.13 million pounds east and 10.12 million pounds west, up 79 percent combined. TACs keep removals below the acceptable biological catch, a federal ceiling the North Pacific Fishery Management Council sets each year.

NOAA Fisheries rates Bristol Bay red king crab as neither overfished nor subject to overfishing, though the department says mature abundance remains near historic lows; that fishery closed in 2021/22 and 2022/23 for low female abundance. Snow crab has been in a federal rebuilding plan since August 2023, after NMFS found the stock overfished following its collapse in the 2019 marine heat wave.