Southeast's Dungeness season closes early on a 25-year-low harvest

Southeast Alaska's summer Dungeness crab season ends Saturday night, three weeks early, after the state's harvest estimate came in the lowest in at least 25 years.

Fish and Game gave the fleet 40 days instead of the usual two months. It is the fifth time since the management plan took effect in the early 2000s that the department has had to cut the season short — and the second year in a row.

Managers have pointed to several possible causes: the timing of the crab molt, which shifts from year to year and place to place, and below-average recruitment of legal-size males into the fishery. There is also a slower change underway. Sea otters have spread into Southeast's inside waters, and in places like Duncan Canal and the Kake area, fish tickets now show almost no crabbing at all in grounds that once produced well.

Boats have until 11:59 p.m. August 1 to pull their gear, though pots may sit in closed waters up to seven days after the closure if the doors are secured open and the bait is out.

The fall season is scheduled to open October 1. How long it runs depends on what the summer numbers show.