Some 800 miles west of Anchorage, in the Bering sea, sits the island of St. Paul, the source of snow crab eaten in the rest of the United States and globally. “Over the last few years, 10 billion snow crabs have unexpectedly vanished from the Bering Sea,” writes Julia O’Malley in FERN’s latest story, produced in collaboration with Grist. “I was traveling there to find out what the villagers might do next.”
“The arc of St. Paul’s recent story has become a familiar one — so familiar, in fact, I couldn’t blame you if you missed it. Alaska news is full of climate elegies now — every one linked to wrenching changes caused by burning fossil fuels,” O’Malley writes.
“Not that long ago, at the peak of crab season in late winter, temporary workers at the plant would double the population of the town, butchering, cooking, freezing, and boxing 100,000 pounds of snow crab per day, along with processing halibut from a small fleet of local fishermen.”
But now the crab fishery has collapsed — with snow crabs declining from 11.7 billion in 2018 to 1.9 billion in 2022. As a result the U.S. government closed the fishery.
Now the Indigenous population on the island is wondering what to do. The economy and tax base has evaporated, but the people are tied historically to the island, raising the question: Will they stay or will they go?
Read the full story on FERN or Grist.