Southeast Alaska's king crab fishery will open, barely clearing the bar

Southeast Alaska's commercial red king crab fishery will open Nov. 1 — only its fourth opening since 2006, and, like last year's, one that barely clears the minimum needed to hold a season at all. The region's quota, about 213,000 pounds, tops the required 200,000-pound floor by roughly 6 percent.

The fishery is closed far more often than open. Before it reopened last season, it had been shut for seven straight years, and the openings that do happen are small: the fleet landed about 176,000 pounds in 2011 and 120,000 in 2017, across roughly 50 boats.

That 200,000-pound floor is itself contested. The Board of Fisheries set it in 2002 at the industry's request, down from 300,000, with the industry arguing anything lower wouldn't pay. State shellfish biologist Adam Messmer and the Petersburg Vessel Owners Association have both called it an outdated economic limit — not a biological one — that can block smaller openings that would still be conservative.

Much of the quota also rests on water the department doesn't survey. This year 64 percent is assigned to unsurveyed "other areas," a figure the department produces by expanding its surveyed results with a formula it changed last season, leaning on harvest data from 1974 to 1984. Only three areas — Seymour Canal, the Juneau area and Gambier Bay — carry any commercial quota; the rest are set at zero.

Stock health is mixed. The department rates the Juneau area healthy and others moderate to poor: a 2025 survey off Juneau counted more than 1,300 juvenile males, while one at Pybus Bay found none. Regionwide, the estimated supply of legal-size male crab jumped 55 percent from 2024 but still sits below its long-term median.

The season runs through Jan. 24, open to any registered boat, with harvest limited to male crab at least 7 inches across the shell. Area-by-area quotas and per-boat pot limits are due in a later announcement.