Diminishing Returns

The pressure on skippers to catch enough to pay the bills is enormous – one reason why in many countries, health and safety regulations are often ignored in the desperate attempt to make every minute at sea count. One successful trip can make a year’s money for the skipper and his crew. But one failed trip – or in the case of Alaska’s crab fisherman, just one bad day – can put the livelihoods of everyone aboard at risk.

This trade-off forces skippers to take more risks and work his crew harder, sometimes with tragic results. Bad days at sea are becoming more common everywhere, as over fishing drives species into decline. Species such as cod have been hounded almost to the point of extinction in many ocean areas in the northern hemisphere, while other species such as bluefin tuna are becoming vanishingly rare around the world. Some of the world’s biggest commercial fisheries are on the verge of collapse, forcing governments to impose new regulations that impose a further trade-off on fishermen – shorter seasons, lower quotas and size limits that prevent smaller fish from being caught or kept.

And Alaska’s king crab fishermen are no exception to these trends. For years, harvesting has been strictly regulated by Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game, which determines the length of the season based on annual crab populations and breeding conditions. The Department’s radio announcement to the boats gathered at Dutch Harbour determines the exact length of the race against time that can make men rich – or which can kill them too. The shorter the season, the more desperate is the rush to fill the holds – a factor which many believe is responsible for the high injury and mortality rate among crab fishermen.