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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Fishermen are probably so fucking pissed with the woke authorities telling them there are no crabs. You can’t eat all the crabs, isn’t the ocean endless or some shit?
Fishermen might not have PhDs but they're not idiots. The snow crab population didn't just vanish over night, it's been falling year by year. Not to mention there are size limitations to legally harvesting snow crabs to keep the population sustainable, and being a fisherman necessitates a minimum degree of awareness of crab sustainability whether it's for legal or practical reasons.
It did vanish overnight!!! Go read up on how fast they disappeared. Yes numbers have been declining but we hit a catastrophic temp event that killed millions of crab.
They starved. It doesn't take long for a crab to starve.
It's worse than that. The snow crab population is close to 10% of what it was in 2009. The point is, this isn't the first time there was a major decline in the snow crab population. It's been dramatically but consistently plummeting over the last decade.
The crab population only 'halved' in 2019 because of a small resurgence in the population in 2018. In reality, the crab population is back on its usual course of being completely screwed by climate change.
Size limits just puts selective pressure to make the species smaller overall. It does nothing to curb overfishing since they’ll just recalibrate their acceptable size limits.
Now I don't know the exact Alaskan snow crab regulations off the top of my head but if they're anything like lobster regulations tend to be you've got it backwards. At least with lobsters they require the be at least a certain size. This ensures that they can reach a reproductive age.
Fish and Game agencies don't just recalibrate acceptable size limits to let people harvest more. The regulations have to be scientifically justifiable if they don't want to lose their federal PR act funds.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't setting a minimum size exactly what leads to reduction in average size? I know that the angling regulations I'm familiar with put very strict limits on maximum size in order to keep the big ones breeding. Presumably, their size is a proxy for overall fitness.
Fishermen aren't all idiots. They understand that no crabs means no crab fishermen.
But if they don’t fish then their neighbor will and will make more money. Tragedies of the Commons don’t give a shit about longevity, this is about industrial and corporate profit.
In March they were fishermen protesting against small quotas. Then came the marine heatwave.