Bering Sea crabbers received good news and bad news last week when catch quotas were announced for fisheries that open next week.
The bad news: The catch for Alaska's most famous crab fishery — Bristol Bay red kings — was slashed by 47 percent to just 7.8 million pounds. Crabbers were expecting a reduced harvest, but they were shocked by the big drop.
"I was very disappointed. We were looking at something around 10 million pounds. I was surprised and a bit frustrated with that low of a quota," said Jake Jacobsen, a veteran Bering Sea crabber and director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, a harvester group.
The crab harvest is the second-lowest since 2001, when 7.1 million pounds were taken, according to Wayne Donaldson, a longtime crab biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Kodiak.
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