Fall Alaska king crab harvest canceled (Metlakatla: buying, interior, population)

[Northrick]

Originally Posted by orbiter

Good one. Thanks.
I live in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia. It's kind of confusing when the advertisement stated "Russian" king crabs caught in Alaska.

Friends who vacationed in South Korea, reported cheap and abundant Russian king crabs there.
Apparently, seafoods are spared from the economic sanctions.
However, I suspect that Canada has stopped all import of seafoods from there some months ago.
Because now the restaurants labelled those king crabs as "Chilean".

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

What do you mean, "those" king crabs? What king crabs? The Russian ones?? I"m not following.

BTW, all Pacific salmon species come from Russia. Do we have to boycott the salmon, too?

I would take it to mean that the restaurants in Vancouver are sourcing the king crab they sell from Chile. Googling it, they look different than the king crab out of the Bering Sea.


Russia has all 5 species of Pacific salmon as does Alaska. I don't know if the US is boycotting Russian salmon but I believe most of the wild salmon sold in the US is from Alaska. Not to be confused with farmed salmon, which is almost all Atlantic salmon, and mostly comes from Canada, Norway, and Chile.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

What do you mean, "those" king crabs? What king crabs? The Russian ones?? I"m not following.

BTW, all Pacific salmon species come from Russia. Do we have to boycott the salmon, too?

The salmon we (in Alaska) harvest have reached the end of their lifetimes and are returning to their home waters to spawn, so I'm not sure what you're trying to claim.

As far as "those king crabs," Chilean king crab exists, so I'm pretty sure the poster meant Chilean king crab.

As far as Russian king crab being abundant in South Korea, that's because Western countries (not just Canada) have banned their import and the Asian market got flooded with them at cut-rate prices as the result.

[Metlakatla]

As far as Russian salmon, U.S. has banned all Russian seafood imports, but it may not be being enforced to the extent that it should be because the majority of Russian salmon is processed in China, and Americans do love their cheap Chinese food products. To be fair to the importers, seafood imports aren't that easily traceable, especially when they pass through multiple countries. In Alaska, on the other hand, we have to be able to account for every fish that enters/leaves our facilities.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by ketchikanite

Do you not understand the life cycle of a salmon? They return to the same stream they are hatched in. After they return to that same stream they spawn and then they die. So they can be Russian, Canadian or Alaskan salmon, etc.

This. Here's a global map showing where just one Pacific salmon species is known to spawn. If you include the sea run trouts which really aren't targeted commercially, there are 7 species.

Chinook Salmon - Oncorhynchus ts

For those who need to brush up on the basics of salmon biology, here's more information about the Pacific species. The genus Oncorhynchus enjoys a huge global range. It includes the coasts of AK, Canada, Pac NW, Russia, China, SE Asia, even the Arctic of both continents. While some fish are known to "stray" meaning they end up spawning in a stream other than the one they hatched in, the majority of them do go back to their birth streams. They end up being commercially harvested as they congregate offshore before starting their run into fresh water. A fish harvested by a boat off the Russian coast was most likely hatched in a Russian stream, not one in AK and vice versa.

https://wildsalmoncenter.org/salmon-...s/chum-salmon/

[Metlakatla]

Leaving out trout, there are six commercially viable North Pacific salmon species. One of them is found only in Asian waters and is commonly referred to as "cherry salmon." There's a landlocked variety of it in Japan, from what I understand, much like inland lakes in the Pacific Northwest have a landlocked variety of sockeye salmon commonly called kokanee.

[Parnassia]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Leaving out trout, there are six commercially viable North Pacific salmon species. One of them is found only in Asian waters and is commonly referred to as "cherry salmon." There's a landlocked variety of it in Japan, from what I understand, much like inland lakes in the Pacific Northwest have a landlocked variety of sockeye salmon commonly called kokanee.

Interesting! I've known about kokanee but not cherry salmon. I'll bet there are more landlocked salmon than we realize. Genetic research just hasn't "discovered" them yet.

[MKTwet]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

The point was the snow crab population declined so quickly within such a short period of time that overfishing couldn't account for it.

These population declines are overblown, it’s just like Maine lobsters. One year the prices spiked because of one season of declines followed by years of over population as the water temps have become more favorable.

Ocean temps changes all the time due to La Niña and La Nino effects, that’s nothing new, fisherman knows they need to go further. Making news about it is all about charging more $$$

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

Interesting! I've known about kokanee but not cherry salmon. I'll bet there are more landlocked salmon than we realize. Genetic research just hasn't "discovered" them yet.

Masu salmon taste more like trout than salmon, probably because they spend most of lives in freshwater and only go out to salt water for one year.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by MKTwet

These population declines are overblown, it’s just like Maine lobsters. One year the prices spiked because of one season of declines followed by years of over population as the water temps have become more favorable.

Ocean temps changes all the time due to La Niña and La Nino effects, that’s nothing new, fisherman knows they need to go further. Making news about it is all about charging more $$$

Thanks for telling me what "fisherman knows;" I never would have known otherwise.

For anyone inclined to buy into the usual conspiracy noise, anyone in the North Pacific seafood industry knows that the Bering Sea is getting warmer in ways that the usual el nino/la nina fluctuations don't account for. This is not a drill.

Edit: the prices of snow crab won't be "spiking" this year as some sort of a "plot" because there won't be any.

[Northrick]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Leaving out trout, there are six commercially viable North Pacific salmon species. One of them is found only in Asian waters and is commonly referred to as "cherry salmon." There's a landlocked variety of it in Japan, from what I understand, much like inland lakes in the Pacific Northwest have a landlocked variety of sockeye salmon commonly called kokanee.

Learn something new every day. I've never heard of cherry/masou salmon before. Now I have.