Commercial Tanner crab fisheries around Kodiak will be closed going into next year. That's after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released the results of the 2025 Tanner crab survey for the Kodiak, Chignik and South Peninsula districts last week.
The fisheries can open only if the estimated numbers of legal size male crab are far enough above abundance thresholds, and that surplus abundance allows a minimum harvest level. The department says that minimum level is 100,000 pounds for sections of the Kodiak District, and 200,000 pounds each for the Chignik and South Peninsula Districts.
Of the six sections surveyed in the Kodiak District only two, the Southeast and Southwest sections, met the regulatory abundance thresholds. But neither had enough surplus abundance to open for the minimum Guideline Harvest Level of 100,000 pounds.
Likewise, based on 2025 survey results, the Chignik District met the regulatory abundance threshold, but surplus abundance was not high enough to justify a 200,000-pound Guideline Harvest Level; therefore, the Chignik District will not open for the 2026 commercial Tanner crab season either.
The South Peninsula District is broken into Eastern and Western sections. The Western Section was below the regulatory abundance threshold, so there is no surplus to harvest. The Eastern Section met the regulatory abundance threshold but the surplus is not enough to set a Guideline Harvest Level of 200,000 pounds, which is the minimum to open the fishery.
Crab fishermen in the region had been fishing on a strong cohort of Tanner crab that emerged on the scene in 2018, but have mostly aged out. That cohort provided four years of harvest opportunities for local fishermen, peaking in 2023 at 5.8 million pounds, the largest harvest in Kodiak since 1986.
Scientists did observe another population bump in 2023, but it is less than half the size of the 2018 cohort. Even if enough of them survive to open a fishery the harvest levels would be much less than last time around, and the Tanners will not grow to harvestable size until at least 2027.
Last crabbing season, starting on Jan. 15 of this year, the harvest level was roughly 770,000 pounds and ended within a few weeks.
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