Snow crab fishing season in Alaska's Bering Sea has been canceled for the first time in history. Bristol Bay's red king crab fishery will also be closed, for the second year in a row. Both decisions follow shellfish surveys that revealed startling population collapses.

Between 2019 and 2021, snow crab numbers in the Bering Sea fell by about 90%. 2022 counts have dropped even further, said Miranda Westphal, a state Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) biologist, to Alaska Public Media. "In 2021 when they surveyed, we saw the largest decline we've ever seen in the snow crab population, which was very startling, I think, for everyone," Westphal told the outlet.

"Management of Bering Sea snow crab must now focus on conservation and rebuilding given the condition of the stock," said the ADF&G in its announcement. "Efforts to advance our science and understanding of crab population dynamics are underway."

The state's crab fishing industry, dramatized in Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, is floundering as a result. "People are really going to have to make some hard calls here, whether that's...selling their vessels [or] looking for other opportunities in other fishing sectors which is few and far between," one fisherman, Gabriel Prout, told Alaska Public Media. "Fishermen are really going to be hurting the next year," he added.

Another fisher, Dean Gribble Sr., told NBC News that the cancelled season would be "life-changing, if not career-ending for people." In 2020, NOAA valued Alaska's snow crab harvest at more than $101.7 million. This year, it will be $0.00.