Skip to Main Content

New

Menu

About

SAFE Title

Alaska Fisheries Science Center

Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
Crab Economic SAFE

NMFS logo

Photo: iStock.com/lfreytag

Annual Highlights

Stats title

Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab* in 2023

totalcatch

10.77 million

pounds of catch

exvessel

$100.8 million

estimated ex-vessel value

laborpay

$19.02 million

harvesting and processing
labor payments

vesselcount

41

vessels fishing

revenueshare

6%

share of total ex-vessel value
of Alaska fisheries

wholesale

$128.2 million

estimated first wholesale value

New

*Statistics are provided for fisheries included in the Crab Rationalization program, which excludes the Norton Sound red king crab and Pribilof Islands golden king crab fisheries

Text

About the SAFE

About the BSAI Crab Economic SAFE

The Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Economic SAFE (BSAI Crab Economic SAFE) is produced annually by the NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center to summarize available economic data about federally-managed king and Tanner crab fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI).

The BSAI Crab Economic SAFE provides figures and tables describing various aspects of the economic performance of the fisheries, including:

  • production, sales, revenue, and price indices in the harvesting and processing sectors
  • income, employment and demographics of harvesting and processing labor
  • quota share leasing and sales activity
  • distribution of quota holdings
  • productivity in the harvesting sector
  • US imports and exports of king and Tanner crab

Cite

How to cite the Crab Economic SAFE

Garber-Yonts, B., A. Abelman, R. Dame, S. Kasperski, and J. Lee. 2024. Stock assessment and fishery evaluation report for the king and Tanner crab fisheries of the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands area: Economic status of the BSAI king and tanner crab fisheries off Alaska, 2023. Anchorage, AK: North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Contact

Contact

For more information, or to provide comments or feedback, please email jean.lee@noaa.gov.

About Crab

Federally managed crab in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands

Federal crab fisheries managed under the Fishery Management Plan for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crab (BSAI Crab FMP) comprise three king crab species (Paralithodes camtschaticus, or red king crab; Lithodes aequispinus, or golden king crab; and Paralithodes platypus, or blue king crab) and two tanner crab species (Chionoecetes opilio, or snow crab; and Chinoectes bairdi, or tanner crab).

SAFE Highlights

Participation, output, and value

Left content

Filters

Notes

  • Monetary amounts (ex-vessel and first wholesale values and prices) may be plotted using nominal or real (inflation-adjusted) values. Real values are adjusted to 2023 dollars using the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) chain-type price index.
  • Confidential values for landing and production volume, ex-vessel and first wholesale value, and ex-vessel and first wholesale price are not plotted.
  • Only BSAI crab fisheries included in the BSAI Crab Rationalization (CR) Program are charted here. Data on participation, output, and value for excluded fisheries (Norton Sound red king crab, Pribilof Islands golden king crab) are provided in Table 1 of the Crab Economic SAFE report.
  • Data sources: ADF&G fish tickets and CFEC gross earnings file (compiled in AKFIN COMPREHENSIVE_FT); ADF&G Commercial Operators Annual Report (compiled in AKFIN COMPREHENSIVE_ENCOAR_PROD); NMFS BSAI Crab Economic Data Reporting (EDR) database. Refer to Table 1 of the Crab Economic SAFE report for additional details on the compilation of these data.

Charts

Chart across fisheries

Crab harvesting and processing participants

* A vessel may operate as both a catcher processor and catcher vessel in one calendar year. As such, the sum of catcher vessels and and catcher processors may be greater than the total number of unique vessels fishing.

Landings and wholesale production weight

Landed weight per vessel

Ex-vessel and first wholesale value

Ex-vessel value per vessel (weighted average)

Ex-vessel and first wholesale prices

Ratio of ex-vessel to first wholesale price

Chart by fishery

title

* A vessel may operate as both a catcher processor and catcher vessel in one calendar year. As such, the sum of catcher vessels and and catcher processors may be greater than the total number of unique vessels fishing.

title

title

title

title

title

title

Employment

Left content

Filters

Notes

  • Labor payments may be plotted using nominal or real (inflation-adjusted) values. Real values are adjusted to 2023 dollars using the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) chain-type price index.
  • Confidential values for labor positions, hours, and pay are not plotted.
  • Only BSAI crab fisheries included in the BSAI Crab Rationalization (CR) Program are charted here. Participants in these fisheries report employment and labor expenditures as part of the BSAI Crab Economic Data Reporting program.
  • Data sources: eLandings; ADF&G fish tickets and CFEC gross earnings file (compiled in AKFIN COMPREHENSIVE_FT); NMFS BSAI Crab Economic Data Reporting (EDR) database. Refer to Table 2 and Table 3.17 of the Crab Economic SAFE report for additional details on the compilation of these data.

Charts

Chart harvesting sector

Harvest crew positions

Captain labor payments

Harvest crew labor payments

Harvest crew labor payments, crab equivalent

Chart processing sector

Plants with crab processing labor

Processing labor hours

Processing labor payments

Processing labor pay rate

Quota holdings

Left content

Filters

Notes

  • Only BSAI crab fisheries included in the BSAI Crab Rationalization (CR) Program are charted here.
  • Quota holdings statistics are presented on a crab-season basis, running from July of one calendar year to June of the next calendar year. 'Initial allocation' statistics describe the status of crab quota holdings as of the beginning of the 2005/06 crab season; for subsequent seasons, statistics represent the status of quota holdings at the end of the season. For example, '2005' statistics describe holdings at the conclusion of the 2005/2006 crab season.
  • Bering Sea Tanner crab quota was initially issued as combined quota for eastern and western regions. Beginning with the 2006/2007 season, quota was split into distinct East and West fisheries.
  • Data sources: NMFS Alaska Region BSAI crab quota share accounting data. Refer to the Crab Economic SAFE report for additional details on the compilation of these data.

Charts

title

title

title

Quota leasing

Left content

Filters

Notes

  • Quota lease costs and prices may be plotted using nominal or real (inflation-adjusted) values. Real values are adjusted to 2023 dollars using the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) chain-type price index.
  • Confidential values for quota pounds leased, quota payments, and quota prices not plotted.
  • Only BSAI crab fisheries included in the BSAI Crab Rationalization (CR) Program are charted here. Participants in these fisheries report quota leases as part of the BSAI Crab Economic Data Reporting program.
  • Data sources: NMFS BSAI Crab Economic Data Reporting (EDR) database. Refer to Table 3 of the Crab Economic SAFE report for additional details on the compilation of these data.

Charts

Chart by fishery

Vessels leasing quota

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS GOLDEN KING CRAB

BERING SEA SNOW CRAB

BERING SEA TANNER CRAB

BRISTOL BAY RED KING CRAB

ST. MATTHEW ISLAND BLUE KING CRAB

Quota pounds leased

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS GOLDEN KING CRAB

BERING SEA SNOW CRAB

BERING SEA TANNER CRAB

BRISTOL BAY RED KING CRAB

ST. MATTHEW ISLAND BLUE KING CRAB

Quota lease costs

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS GOLDEN KING CRAB

BERING SEA SNOW CRAB

BERING SEA TANNER CRAB

BRISTOL BAY RED KING CRAB

ST. MATTHEW ISLAND BLUE KING CRAB

Quota lease prices (weighted mean)

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS GOLDEN KING CRAB

BERING SEA SNOW CRAB

BERING SEA TANNER CRAB

BRISTOL BAY RED KING CRAB

ST. MATTHEW ISLAND BLUE KING CRAB

Quota lease rates (lease price as % of ex-vessel price)

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS GOLDEN KING CRAB

BERING SEA SNOW CRAB

BERING SEA TANNER CRAB

BRISTOL BAY RED KING CRAB

ST. MATTHEW ISLAND BLUE KING CRAB

Chart by quota

Vessels leasing quota

CVO A QS

CVO B and CPO QS

CVC and CPC QS

CDQ and ACA QS

Quota pounds leased

CVO A QS

CVO B and CPO QS

CVC and CPC QS

CDQ and ACA QS

Quota lease costs

CVO A QS

CVO B and CPO QS

CVC and CPC QS

CDQ and ACA QS

Quota lease prices (weighted mean)

CVO A QS

CVO B and CPO QS

CVC and CPC QS

CDQ and ACA QS

Quota lease rates (lease price as % of ex-vessel price)

CVO A QS

CVO B and CPO QS

CVC and CPC QS

CDQ and ACA QS

Available Data

How to use these reports

How to use these reports

Select a report to view from the available reports menu. Some reports provide a single view of tabular data, while others provide multiple views of tabular data and/or charts.

Use buttons and menus within each report to perform various actions:

Toggle between tabular data reports and charts

Select views of tabular data or charts

Display footnotes beneath the report

The right-hand side of the report displays report metadata and selected filters. Use the buttons at the top to perform the following actions:

  •      Filter results
  •      Download data
  •      View other reports available from AKFIN
  •      View report metadata

New

Available reports - public

Report Cards