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No king crab in Kodiak after 25 yearsNovember 19, 2007By Ludger Dochtermann - It's the 25th anniversary of "NO KING CRAB SEASON" for Kodiak. 
This sad event compels me to offer some comments and criticisms to a succession of city and borough mothers and fathers, local senators and representatives, the Board of Fish, ADFG and NMFS and Governors and the Legislatures. Let's not forget Uncle Ted, Pompous Don and Frank the Bank who were in office during all these 'do nothing' years. It took only 10 years to remove the once proudly placed signs at the airport and above North Pacific fuel, which proclaimed "KODIAK, THE KING CRAB CAPITAL OF THE WORLD". What caused the King Crab stocks to crash puzzles scientists to this day; and of course, this must be studied to death before anything can be done. Here's my opinion: Until the implementation of the Magnuson Act and the 35% AMERICANIZATION of the EEZ fisheries, foreign Factory trawler fleets of more than 10 nations pillaged our fishery resources with deadly hard on bottom dragging. They tore our crab schools to bits, as anyone on deck of local crab vessels at that time can attest to. Mutilated crab were the norm. When the integrity of crab schools gets compromised the resulting destruction gives predator fish the opening to target on wounded and small crabs that are then extremely vulnerable. This led to a massive increase in biomass of Bottomfish. The Trawling - coupled with a severe infestation of female egg clutches by a worm parasite and several years of untimely plankton bloom [vital KC larva food] - led to a drastic decline in the King Crab population. The local shrimp fleet of about 70 vessels faced a disappearance of their stocks. There was very little trawling for bottomfish going on by our locals before the shrimp were fished out. The local fleet - after doing well in Cod and Pollock joint ventures mainly in the Bering Sea - was phased out by the American factory trawler fleet, which was financed by the US taxpayers with 4% loans easily gotten from NOAA. The late 70's and early 80's were a free-for-all time for the trawl industry. There were no observers on any vessels. Illegal Halibut and Black Cod was shipped - clandestinely by American factory trawlers - to Japan on trampers they met in local bays. All Alaskan waters were wide open to hard on bottom trawling. I saw factory trawlers in many Kodiak bays before we were able to close some of them off to hard on bottom trawling. Once the shelf stock of crabs was decimated, only the bays gave sanctuary. When the bays were scraped clean, the Bairdi fishery collapsed too. Hard on Bottom Trawling and Crab do not do well together. For 18 years I tried to get something done about rehabilitation of the King Crab resource. Every 3-year cycle of the BOF saw proposals for some form of KC rehab in it. They were all shot down. I talked in vain to Zarhoff, Davidson, Austerman, and now Stevens and Le Doux, and whomever else is in power. Nada, 0, nothing, zilch, nichts was done by the people in charge. No Money ... NO MONEY!, I hear it in my sleep. We do have money though for shooting 3 to 5 target vehicles into space to the tune of 100 million bucks. Hoodwinked again. We were fed the nonsense that we were going to be 'Space Port Earth North' with commercial rockets and payloads. 3 mmmillion Bucks to hack off parts of Deadman's Curve so the interceptors could make it around the curve??? Millions to pave the road to deliver the interceptors??? They would have never paved the road for "US" local yokels!!! Then there is the White Elephant of the doomed to failure from the start seafood plant in Anchorage that everyone here laughed about. Over 100,mmmm000,000.00illion the fools at AIDEA wasted on that project. I wonder if whoever approved it got canned??? Probably not. The way things work in bureaucracies is screw up and get promoted. Countless millions have been spend on local projects, hospital, fancy state and federal buildings, paved streets and sidewalks: which we do appreciate. There was never any money for bringing back the vanished crab. Thank you, Dr. Brad Stevens for starting the 'Rehab research project' at the Fish Tech Center. Thank you, to Sarah PhD and her staff for doing much with little. Thank you, Jeff Stephen for your hard work in pushing the project. Money is needed for the first hatchery TODAY!, not next year or maybe some day. If our officialdom even considers spending 4.5 MMMMMillions on AstroTurf for the sports complex I'll really be outraged. Thank you to the City and the Borough for each contributing 10,000.00 dollars, not millions, to the research project. My letters to all have gone unanswered, without exception. I wonder why??? I get cynical and it comes to mind that trawl organizations and processors like the way things are now. The draggers sure have no interest in having crab come back: ANY CRAB! To them it would mean restrictions on their fishing activities. The Draggers are using all of their control powers at the local, state and federal level to prevent meaningful observer coverage for one year only, to create baseline data of what they REALLLLLYY catch. I for one want to know how much Crab, Halibut and Black cod is taken and pitched over the side. Those are the species that I and many of my environmentally concerned and responsible friends depend on for our livelihoods. My fishing days in my log book are on page 15 for the GOA. I took a chart to one of our local trawl organizations and several of us marked out sensitive Tanner crab habitat in yellow and I asked the trawl Lord to please tell his minions to stay of those vestige schools. Now I AM cynical because, every time that I have traveled by one of the yellow areas, the trawl fleet has been right where I hoped they would never be. So much for cooperation. We need protected crab habitat that can't be trawled on and we need money to build a chain of crab hatcheries to restock the Gulf of Alaska bays. THE State spent 70 mmmillllions on a fish hatchery in Fairbanks. When I asked Senator Gary Stevens while he was in Juneau at the end of the 2007 session if he got us any money for King Crab Rehab he was proud to report that 500,000.00 THOUSAND dollars, that's not millions, had been appropriated for the Seward SeaLife crab enhancement project. Thank YOU so very Mucho gracious, Legislature. I am so impressed I feel like regurgitating my Last Supper. When I asked Gary Stevens why nothing for the Kodiak project he told me, "WE can't have everything." Direct Quote. So I asked myself, what do we have? A rocket site that shoots no rockets. A fish tech center with underfunded laboratories. A brand new Refuge headquarters over 6,000,000.00 Mmmmmmillions. And a nice hospital and paved sidewalks. BUT NO KING CRAB! The Russki's, our erstwhile enemies, they at least had a vision. Dr. Oleg, the father of the Barents Sea King Crab transplant project pointed out the Red Gold Rush, which he then precipitated. Transplanted in 1961, the descendents of those King Crab invaded the US market this year with 56,000,000 lbs., worth egadsmillions. The invaders have moved half way down Norway and created lucrative income opportunities. We have sat here for 25 years doing nothing. When the Steller Sea Lion declined, Uncle Ted's tantrum loosened up 100 mmmmmmmillllions. That is a lot of money in any man's book!!! What has that brought us? We studied them to death almost, but many a local fisherman could tell you how many thousands were shot for sport and how many thousands of stupid young ones got caught in the Pollock trawl fishery in the Shelikoff Strait in the 80's. Let's get real money appropriated Sarah, Gary, Gabrielle, Linda, Carolyn, Jerome, city council and assembly members. Before the Endangered Species Act appears. After all, Alaska's Constitution, in Article 8, paragraph 4 states, "replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses." SHALL BE Developed and Maintained! Even at 65, I for one would like that old sign up again. Or better yet, a new one, for a new generation of local fishermen. And when the King Crab are back let's divvy up the grounds in peace and cooperation, so we can ALL make a living here. After 25 years, I'll pay for that sign. Ludger Dochtermann © AlaskaReport |