Alaskan fishers fear another bleak season as crab populations dwindle in warming waters

And yet. They likely all vote republicans. “Socialism” sends USD 200m to help to help people who will then shout “Let’s go Brandon” and do everything in their power to undermine any ability to actually slow down the warming of the planet.

I am clearly running out of sympathy here.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Kevin Abena, who runs a fishing business with his father, also relies on tendering to stay afloat in the wake of the crab fishery closure.

Scientists say two years of low sea ice cover and abnormally warm ocean temperatures due to climate change in 2018 and 2019 may have altered the ecosystem in a way that snow crab couldn’t survive, said Mike Litzow, lab director at the Kodiak Fisheries Science Center.

Their annual survey, which was skipped in 2020 due to COVID, found total crab populations in the Bering Sea plummeted from an all-time high of 11.7 billion in 2018 to 940 million in 2021, the lowest ever recorded.

Researchers have found these crab can survive in water warmer than this, leading them to speculate that rising ocean temperatures alone aren’t to blame for the collapse.

Instead, researchers think the warmer water may have allowed more predators into the habitat, facilitated disease spread or made it harder for the crabs to catch enough prey to fuel an increased metabolism.

In May, the U.S. Department of Commerce allocated almost $192 million to help Alaskan fishers affected by the closures of the king and snow crab fisheries for the last two years, but Prout thinks many boats will go out of business before that money arrives.

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Poor fishers. Big fossil fuel will destroy their business before they can do it themselves.