As billions of snow crabs go missing in the waters of Alaska, the snow crab harvest has to be cancel for the first time in ever.
Last week, the Alaska Board of Fisheries and North Pacific Fishery Management Council reported a dangerous decline in snow crabs.
According to a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the number of crabs dropped from 8 billion in 2018 to only a shocking 1 billion.
“Snow crab is the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that are caught commercially,” Daly said.
“So the shock of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – which includes all the females and babies.”
This will be the second year that the harvest will have closed.
Mark Stichert, the state’s groundfish and shellfish fisheries management coordinator, said that more crabs were fished from the waters than they could replenish naturally.
He added that 2021 and 2022 studies found only 45 million pounds of snow crabs in the Bering Sea.
A sharp decline
Crab populations are plummeting due to human-caused global warming. Because they need cold-water habitats, you can find snow crabs mostly in regions with water temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
The water near Alaska is increasingly unfriendly to the species as the temperatures warm and sea ice vanishes. Scientists found that the Arctic has warmed four times faster than the rest of Earth.
The fast melting of sea ice in the Arctic is a direct result of climate change and global warming.
Sources: CNN