Southeast Alaska’s commercial Dungeness crab summer season ended three weeks early, on July 25. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the amount fishermen caught at the beginning of the season was the lowest amount in over 30 years.
Fish and Game estimated permit holders would catch roughly 1.5 million pounds of crab during the season. State shellfish biologist Joe Stratman said the department made that estimate using data from the first week of fishing, which determined the length of the season.
“Pounds landed in the first seven days this season were like 388,000 pounds. That’s well below the previous 10-year average, which is like 860,000 pounds,” Stratman said. “That’s an average usually landed in the first week.”
He said the low number of crabs is due to fewer legal-sized crabs available for harvest – the fishery targets mature males. But, the department isn’t entirely sure why there were so few crabs.
Last year’s summer season also ended early, but the crab estimates were higher. That fishery closed six days early. Stratman says this is the fifth season that has closed early since 2000.
Last year, multiple communities in Southeast Alaska called for stronger management of the region’s growing sea otter population, saying the otters are depleting shellfish populations, including crab.
Otters are a federally managed species, and Stratman said the state doesn’t do surveys of Dungeness crab. But, anecdotally, fishermen are seeing a lot of sea otters in new areas. And, fishermen have been increasingly moving to fishing grounds closer to mainland shores.
Stratman said there are multiple factors impacting where fishermen fish, but, “certainly the largest factor that has moved these permit holders onto an ever-smaller fishing grounds is movement of sea otters in the inside waters,” Stratman said.
Stratman said there will be a fall Dungeness crab season, and the department will announce the specifics soon.
The 2025-26 commercial Dungeness crab season was valued at $8.6 million.
