Disagreements over snow crab have pretty much become a rite of winter and spring in Newfoundland and Labrador.
At this time of the year, it seems the FFAW-Unifor (representing harvesters) and the Association for Seafood Producers (ASP) (representing processors) are squaring off for the annual battle over snow crab prices for the upcoming season. This has happened pretty much every year in recent memory.
However, the pricing battle has been overshadowed for now by a spat over the 2025 end of season settlement payment for the Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab rebate/bonus.
In January of this year, auditors from Deloitte completed their analysis and set a final rebate of $0.28, yielding a total price of $5.25/lb.
It would be an understatement to say the union disagreed. “Over $100 million dollars has been stolen from our coastal communities and local economy. Nothing about this result is fair or acceptable, and it’s time for our new provincial government to take the swift action needed to address the root of the issue, which is corporate control and transparency in fish prices,” stated FFAW-Unifor Secretary-Treasurer Jamie Baker.
In a press release, the ASP countered saying “the $0.28/lb rebate is the outcome of a pricing formula developed and put forward by FFAW and subsequently selected by the Standing Fish Price-Setting Panel, and an independent third-party verification conducted by Deloitte, a globally respected professional services firm. The verification was completed using actual sales data and documentation provided by processors, in accordance with the agreed-upon process. The harvesters’ share of the market price for the 2025 season has been determined to be $5.25/lb, representing an additional $0.28/lb to the base price of snow crab. Deloitte’s review process included all sales of five to eight-ounce sections in 30 lb boxes. The FFAW executive created unrealistic expectations among its membership that the rebate would exceed $1.00/lb. These expectations were misleading and not based on fact. If the FFAW had applied the market data to their own formula, they would have seen that the resulting figure was far from the $1.00/lb that the union executive was promoting. If harvesters are dissatisfied with the final price, their concerns should be directed to their union executive, as the price is based on the FFAW’s own formula.”
As of the writing of this editorial, this issue was still being hotly contested.
But this region is not alone in facing adversity in the crab fishery. As documented numerous times in The Navigator, thousands of kilometres to the west, snow crab fishermen in Alaska’s Bering Sea are only now starting to recover from the catastrophic collapse of that fishery, only a few years ago.
In 2018–19, the Alaska snow crab biomass was hit with a mass mortality event, theorized to be related to warming water temperatures, decimating the once abundant stock. This led to drastic cuts to quotas for several fishing seasons.
Scientists are only now putting together the pieces to explain what happened beneath the waves of the Bering Sea to lay waste to the multi-million-dollar Alaskan snow/opilio crab fishery.
A recently released study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Alaska Fisheries Science Center provided critical insights into the Bering Sea snow crab population collapse in 2018–2019.
Scientists set out to identify potential factors driving the increased mortality, population collapse and recovery potential of Bering Sea snow crab. They measured snow crab energy reserves during and after the 2018–2019 marine heatwave and population collapse.
The study stated that warmer conditions and high population density led to energetic limitations — likely causing the snow crab population collapse.
“Poor energetic condition is a state in which crabs have low energy reserves. This can increase starvation and mortality risk, emphasizing the importance of monitoring the energetic condition of individuals in marine populations. Techniques used to monitor energy reserves in fish often rely on data collected rapidly during annual scientific surveys, such as the weight-at-size of individual fish. However, snow crabs have exoskeletons; they molt as juveniles, which uses a lot of their energy stores. They require more sensitive techniques to detect energy reserves beyond simple length-weight measurements. These techniques are often time-intensive and costly. Scientists have not routinely monitored energetic condition in Bering Sea crab populations to date.”
The study found that during the snow crab collapse, decreases in abundance were associated with dramatic declines in the energetic condition of juveniles.
“It’s always a concern when you see impacts to juveniles. They represent the future of the population and the fishery. In this case, their energetic deficiencies were attributed to high population density — which likely created too much competition for food — and the warm conditions brought on by the marine heatwave.”
Snow crab have historically been associated with the cold pool in the Bering Sea (cold bottom waters under 2°C). Authors of the study were surprised to find that much colder temperatures below 0°C appear necessary for promoting elevated energy reserves and high survival in snow crab.
“Our results underscore the consequences associated with elevated temperatures and high population density and point towards the critical importance of cold-water habitat for snow crab recovery in the eastern Bering Sea.”
Coming back to our region of the North Atlantic, there is evidence that waters here are also showing signs of warming. If an unexpected marine heatwave could cause so much damage to the snow crab stocks off Alaska, is there chance something like that could happen here?
The lessons learned on the continent’s west coast should ring true for the commercial fishery here as well.
