Unalaska, AK – The local Eastern Aleutian District tanner crab fishery opened on Friday. Eight boats are trying to catch the 74,000 pounds available in Unalaska and Kalekta Bay and the 45,000 pounds in Akutan Bay. The Makushin and Skan Bay area is closed to fishing this year. Assistant Area Management Shellfish Biologist Jeanette Alas said that it is not atypical for one section to be closed. Each year the Alaska Department of Fish & Game surveys all of the sections to see if they should be fished.

"We look at the abundance populations from the surveys along with the mature male crab we find. We look at the shell conditions as well as the sizes to get an idea whether the crab are pre-recruit, recruit, or post-recruit," she explained. "Because the guideline harvest level is the amount of crab we say we can catch from each section and basically we want that only to be the surplus population of males. We don't want to take any from the population of crab that are going to reproduce."

The survey showed the lowest abundance of crabs in Makushin Bay since 2000. Akutan Bay, however, had the second highest abundance in the survey time series and Unalaska Bay's legal male abundance is up 32 percent from the 2008 survey.

So far fishermen have caught about 20 percent of the guideline harvest level in Unalaska Bay. Prices and definite amounts are confidential because they are only delivering to one plant.

The fishery will remain open until the guideline harvests are met or until March 31, which ever happens first. It could also close early if catch rates fall very low.

"It could be closed because the catch per unit effort falls below our minimum threshold. Basically we then would have a fear of localized depletion. So if the cumulative effort falls below 10 crabs per unit effort then the fishery could be closed by emergency order."

The EAD fishery is open access and qualifying boats compete for the catch. Boats participating in the EAD fishery must be 58 feet or under and pre-register with Fish & Game by December 24. Each vessel is allowed to use 33 pots.