Wrangell calls the Dungeness crab decline a disaster; the state calls it the plan

More than 60 commercial Dungeness crab permit holders in Wrangell are looking at shortened seasons and a catch running more than 40 percent below the five-year average. The borough Assembly declared a local disaster over it last month and asked Gov. Mike Dunleavy to seek a federal fishery disaster determination for the coming season.

The numbers are not in dispute. Southeast fishermen landed about 2.07 million pounds across last summer and fall, against a five-year average near 3.6 million. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game projects this season at 1.5 million to 2.25 million pounds and said in June it expects the total near the bottom of that range.

What the state did with those numbers is cut the seasons. It closed the summer fishery in late July after 40 days, three weeks short of the maximum. The fall season, which opens Oct. 1, will run 30 days. Under the state's management plan, that follows automatically when the projected harvest falls short of 2.25 million pounds. The department did not call it a disaster, because the plan does not use the word. It sets season length by formula, and the formula worked.

Wrangell's resolution says the decline has strained fishermen, families and businesses across the community. The fishery has averaged $11.2 million a year in dockside value over the five seasons before this one. A federal determination would make the fishery eligible for aid, though the borough's own release notes any money is "subject to federal appropriations and an approved spending plan."

That queue is long. About $99 million in federal fishery disaster aid has reached Alaska for snow crab and salmon failures. Thirteen more requests are still waiting.