Unalaska, AK – The first eastern area Bering Sea tanner crab season in a decade hasn't been a promising one so far.

The first deliveries in the fishery, which opened on October 15, have been full of what's known as old shell crab, according to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. Although the department doesn't have hard numbers yet, area management biologist Forrest Bowers says that more than half of the crabs in some deliveries have been old shell.

Old shell crabs are crabs that have failed to molt in the past year. As a result, their shells are often discolored and scratched. The meat is the same as that of new shell crabs, but aesthetics are important in the seafood business, so old shell is a harder sell for processors and vendors.

Bowers says the prevalence of old shell tanner crabs this season isn't a surprise. A survey conducted this summer by ADF&G found that 80 percent of the tanners sampled had the condition.

About 63,000 pounds of tanner crab have been landed in Dutch Harbor so far this season, all of it from the eastern section of the fishery. That's about 4 percent of the eastern area's total allowable catch for the species. No tanners have been landed yet from the western area of the Bering Sea fishery.