The world’s supply of king crab legs is about to increase. On Friday the Alaska Board of Fisheries voted to up the Aleutian Islands golden king crab allocation by five percent.

Unlike the other crab fisheries in the Bering Sea, the amount of golden king crab that can be harvested is set in regulation. There’s a model in development that will allow fisheries managers to decide on an annual basis how much crab can be caught sustainably, but that’s still a few years out.

Recently though, fishermen have been catching more golden kings in each pot, which they say is a sign that the population is thriving. Dick Tremaine is a spokesperson for Siu Alaska, a major holder of golden king crab harvesting and processing quota. He says the higher catch rates prompted the fleet to ask for more crab quota.

“The harvest levels allowed by Board of Fish and Fish and Game just haven’t kept up.”

The harvesters suggested adding 20 percent to the existing allocation, but the Board voted for a much smaller, 5 percent increase. That equals roughly 300,000 additional pounds per year. In dollars that translates to nearly $1.5 million annually, if dock prices stay at this year’s record high of $5 per pound.