A limited amount of Norton Sound red king crab was for sale on the dock in Kodiak on July 19. This crab species is rarely available in this part of the state. And the Kodiak commercial fisherman who legally caught the king crab is facing some pushback.
Raymond May was born and raised on Kodiak Island and has been fishing in Alaska for 40 years. He also holds the salmon fisher’s seat on the Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force, as appointed by Governor Mike Dunleavy.
May operates his own vessel, called the Resilient, which is labeled as a tender packer. May’s boat was spotted docked in Nome’s small boat harbor on June 18 and immediately sparked criticism on social media.
This was May’s first year crabbing in the Norton Sound red king crab fishery according to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission database.
Some Nomeites and Norton Sound crab fishermen alike expressed frustration on a community Facebook page, Nome Chatter, that the Resilient was fishing for red king crab hundreds of miles away from its home port. Josie Bahnke, Kodiak's Acting City Manager and former Nome resident, acknowledged on Facebook that although this is not illegal, it seems “unethical.”
May told KMXT he participated in the king crab fishery this year to, “try new opportunities to keep [his] business going.”
The Norton Sound red king crab fishery is distinct from other crab fisheries in the state. It’s an open access fishery and has been designated as a “super exclusive fishery” since 1994. That means that a vessel registered for the Norton Sound red king crab fishery cannot participate in any other king crab fishery during that same year.
Norton Sound’s fishery is not an individual fishing quota fishery (IFQ), a type of catch share that allows fishers to harvest a portion of the annual total allowable catch (TAC) of a specific species, usually with some sort of cap or limit. But it does feature a Community Development Quota Program where a percentage of the total quota is set aside for the local CDQ group, Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation.
Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation (NSEDC), in Nome, said in an emailed statement shared by KNOM, “…our commercial seafood operations only purchase harvests from fishers meeting NSEDC’s residency requirements. NSEDC is not purchasing crab harvested by the Resilient.”
Kevin Clark, the area manager for the Arctic region with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Nome office, said 31 boats registered for the summer fishery in Norton Sound, which lasted about 28 days; a bit shorter than usual. The total GHL was 433,100 pounds and Clark adds that the average weight per crab was just over 3 pounds this year, which was good news for fishermen’s bottom line.
“The main reason it lasted as long as it did, is the local processor’s capacity was not able to keep up," Clark said. "And the processor [Norton Sound Seafood Products] had the local boats delivering to the processor on limits for most of the season. That didn’t necessarily slow down the crab crawling into the pots, but it did slow down the crab coming across the dock.”
On top of the local processor's limited capacity, some Nome fishermen say they will likely be competing with more non-regional boats, bigger ones like the Resilient, in the future. These factors can negatively impact fishermen’s livelihoods.
Crabber Adem Boeckmann told KNOM Radio in Nome that the percentage of the quota he caught this year was roughly a third smaller than what he caught last year and he attributes that in part to more boats participating in the Norton Sound red king crab fishery.
The Norton Sound crabbing season officially ended on Saturday, July 13. And although the final numbers aren’t in yet, Clark said the fleet caught slightly over the fishery’s quota this summer.
“Basically we caught in the neighborhood of 467,000 pounds. So basically we went over by 8% of the quota," Clark explained.
May would not say how many pounds of that total quota the Resilient legally caught and transported back to Kodiak.
But according to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission's state database, the Kodiak catcher-vessel is 58 feet in length, which is one of the bigger boats seen in the Norton Sound region. Only three other tender vessels [T/V] Paul C. Johnson, St. Lawrence, and Egavik, all owned by the regional economic development corporation (NSEDC), are listed as being larger than the Resilient.
May told Kodiak City Council members in an email obtained by KMXT through a public records request, that he secured a tender for the crab he harvested and, “that tender allows the crab to be transported to Kodiak which results in the community and government of Kodiak to experience the benefits of additional seafood landing taxes through my catch," May wrote.
On Friday, July 19, some of the large crustaceans were sold locally at $80 a crab to offer opportunities for dozens of Kodiak residents to eat the coveted red king crab. According to a Facebook post from the Resilient, custom processed blast-frozen red king crab sections will be for sale in the coming days.
But May told KMXT that the vast majority of his catch was sold to local processors in Kodiak, including Pacific Seafoods.
A spokesperson from Pacific Seafoods did not respond to KMXT’s requests for comment.