The Saint Matthew Island Section blue king crab and the Pribilof District red and blue king crab fisheries will remain closed for the 2004 season.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) completed analysis of the 2004 NMFS trawl survey results for these parts of Registration Area Q and found both stocks are depressed.

If thresholds had been met to open the fishery, they would have both opened Sept. 15, but neither fishery has opened since 1998, said area management biologist for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands Forrest Bowers.

Survey estimates for Saint Matthew blue king crab indicate continued low abundance of mature male and female crabs. The stock is above the mature biomass threshold of 2.9 million pounds of mature males. However, the calculated general fishery guideline harvest level (GHL) is only 0.592 million pounds, well below the harvest strategy minimum GHL of 2.5 million pounds.

Survey results of Pribilof District blue king crabs also indicate continued low abundance. The abundance of blue king crabs estimated by the ADF&G is lower in 2004 than in 2003 and NMFS estimates of abundance are the lowest ever.

The minimum threshold for a fishery opening is a total biomass estimate of at least 13.2 million pounds of blue king crabs for two consecutive years. The 2003 total mature biomass estimate was 4.1 million pounds of mature male blue king crabs and the 2004 estimate decreased to 0.5 million pounds of blue king crabs, the lowest ever and approximately 4 percent of the threshold value.

“Blue king crab stock in the Pribilofs and Saint Matthew Island is extremely depressed. There’s no sign of recovery right now, and there hasn’t been since 1998,” Bowers said.

“There is quite a bit of habitat protection there and very little human cause of mortality. The exact cause of the decline is not known, but could include ecological and oceanographic factors,” he said.