Study: Conservation Alone Can’t Ensure Sustainable Snow Crab Fishing Goals

A study released by Purdue University on the impacts of climate change on the global snow crab fishery concludes that given the uncertainties induced by climate change, conservation strategies alone are not sufficient to ensure sustainable fishery goals.

The research, led by Jingjing Tao and released by the Purdue University Department of Agricultural Economics, was published in the online publication Natural Resource Modeling on Aug. 5.

The study estimates snow crab harvest functions using climate change indicators with unbalanced panel data of snow crab production from the eastern Bering Sea off Alaska, the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada, the Sea of Japan and the Barents Sea, impacting Norway and Russia.

Despite years of efforts by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to regulate licenses and permits for snow crab, the Alaska snow crab population experienced a sharp shrink in 2021and for the first time in the state history and Alaska fisheries officials announced the shutdown of the snow crab harvest, the report said.

As study estimates suggest, stock levels play a much more important role than fishing effort. Therefore, to mitigate environmental vulnerabilities and protect the production of the snow crab industry, new framework should incorporate stock enhancement plans to encompass specific measures, such as artificial stocking, genetic improvement programs, pollution and disease control and habitat protection for the snow crab population.

To strengthen snow crab policy frameworks, the research team recommended integrating insights from ecological studies on snow crab food web interactions and social systems into policy design to explore potential spillover effects. Additionally fostering collaboration with other fishery policies applicable in the same snow crab habitat area and promoting shared stewardship are crucial for a more comprehensive and effective approach, the report said.

One limitation of this study, the authors acknowledged, was the lack of standardization in measuring fishing efforts in the snow crab fishery. Each region employs various measurement methods, utilizing metrics such as the number of vessels, nets, or stations, potentially introducing different levels of measurement errors and producing inconsistent errors for estimates.

To improve the understanding of snow crab fishing effort and advance snow crab fishery regulation and protection the authors recommended that regions involved in snow crab fishery collaborate to develop a standardized method for measuring fishing effort.

They also suggested that future researchers incorporate more regions, such as South Korea, Greenland and Iceland, when more data become available, to have an inclusive exploration of global snow crab fisheries.

Source: https://fishermensnews.com/study-conservation-alone-cant-ensure-sustainable-snow-crab-fishing-goals/