King Crab (Renee Claggett/KSTK)
The Alaska Board of Fisheries will meet in Wrangell this week to consider proposed changes to Department of Fish and Game shellfish regulations for the Southeast region.
The Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee did not submit any proposals this year, but committee members took an interest in several proposals regarding Dungeness crab and shrimp fisheries.
The local committee supported a proposal to remove threshold harvest limits from the Southeast Alaska Area Dungeness Crab Fisheries Management Plan.
Wrangell Advisory Committee Chairperson Chris Guggenbickler said the plan’s guideline harvest levels only led to a season reduction one time, in 2013.
“I believe what the case is, is due to size and sex and season, that those are enough regulations for that fishery, is what we feel. We don’t feel that management plan needs to continue,” Guggenbickler said.
Guggenbickler said the local committee also wants to see daily data used for more in-season management of the Southeast Pot Shrimp fishery.
“Our area manager has adjusted our quotas in season based on that, and the rest of the districts are all based on the three-year season quota. And so they wait for three years, and then they look at it and they make an adjustment. Well, the shrimp population fluctuates way more than that,” Guggenbickler said. “And we would like the other area managers to manage their areas a little more in season as well.”
The Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee will take its recommendations to the Board of Fisheries during the public comment period that begins Wednesday.
The Board of Fisheries will be deliberating at the Nolan Center through Monday. The meetings are open to the public.
