P.E.I. snow crab fishers are facing a big cut in how much they can catch in 2025, with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans recommending a 33 per cent reduction in their quota in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.
That number is based on concerns about the health of the crab population, and comes as the threat of a U.S. tariff looms over the industry.
“It kind of hits you hard because it’s a substantial amount of crab to lose and it’s a substantial income to lose,” said Alden Gaudet, who fishes snow crab out of Tignish Run and is vice-president of the P.E.I. Snow Crab Association.
This year’s reduction comes on the heels of a similar cut last season.
“I believe we’ll be dropping about 20,000 pounds per licence this year, and I believe we dropped 21,000 pounds per P.E.I. licence last year,” Gaudet said.
“So it’s on par with the drop. It’s kind of a little bit scary, seeing two years with such substantial drops.”
Concern over stocks
DFO scientists say they’re worried about the health of stocks of snow crab in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. They tend to rise and fall on a 10-year cycle, and are now below average.
“As it stands now, we’re predicting another decrease, probably a more modest decrease for next year,” DFO biologist Tobie Surette said during a media briefing on snow crab stocks.
“In two to three years time, we’re expecting — if everything continues to go according to plan — that the commercial stock will have an influx of new crab coming in. So the commercial biomass should go up at that time.”
Surette said there had been a surge in the number of small snow crab starting in 2019, but that “pulse,” as he called it, has dwindled over the last couple of years.
“It’s an open question, whether the population could sustain such a large number of small crab in the first place,” he said. “It’s possible that they were too densely aggregated for the food and the environment to sustain them all.”
If there’s a limit in food availability, it’s the smaller crab that can suffer at the hands of the larger ones.— Tobie Surette, DFO biologist
Another theory? “Snow crab is also a cannibalistic species. It’s known that larger crab can eat smaller ones. So if there’s a limit in food availability, it’s the smaller crab that can suffer at the hands of the larger ones.”
Surette said DFO does a trawl survey every summer in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence to collect information on the size and the composition of the snow crab population.
Partnership proposal
The snow crab industry in the region gave DFO a proposal of its own, knowing the cuts were coming.
They lobbied for what’s called a 200 per cent partnership, in which two licence holders can team up on one boat, Gaudet said.
That would let them use one boat to harvest from 150 traps, “which would save substantial cost on crew shares, bait, fuel,” he said. “It would mean that the boats would come in with more crab on them, so there’s a chance that they can come in with their quota faster.”
The crab will still move, but it’s gonna move way slower because brokers are not interested in taking the losses like they took three years ago.— Alden Gaudet, P.E.I. Snow Crab Association
Gaudet said the minister of fisheries denied the request, despite the threats of U.S. tariffs that could substantially change the price of Canadian crab. He said the minister didn’t give any reason for rejecting the proposal.
He said the 25 per cent tariffs being floated by U.S. President Donald Trump could make snow crab too expensive for the average consumer, the way it was a few years ago.
“The crab will still move, but it’s gonna move way slower because brokers are not interested in taking the losses like they took three years ago,” Gaudet said.
“They’ll be buying crab, but they’ll be buying it in very small amounts and they won’t be buying more until they actually move these small amounts of crab.”
Gaudet said there are also discussions about starting the snow crab season earlier so that boats could avoid the annual migration of North Atlantic right whales into the Gulf, which is another concern.
He said the first calls to talk about opening time will start in mid-March, and the season could open as early as April 1.
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