Seattle is the staging point for most of the Alaska crab fishing fleet, and successive fishery closures have been hard on local businesses that serve crabbers, like shipyards and chandlers.
In 2021, the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery closed in 2021 after a decade of decline, and the snow crab season was canceled in 2022 due to a sudden collapse in population. No one yet knows the future for these lucrative fisheries. Meanwhile, wholesale prices for Dungeness crab have plummeted this year, reducing the income of the coastal boats that target this smaller but important fishery.
