Anchorage Daily News

Alaska's deadliest catch -- the Bering Sea commercial crab fishery -- isn't so deadly anymore.

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No crabbers have died in nearly three years, and the death rate this decade is a far cry from the carnage seen through the 1990s, when 70 were killed, figures from the U.S. Coast Guard show.

"This is a really cool story," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Chris Woodley, who worked for years to improve safety in the crab fleet. "I don't think people realize how much things have changed."

Monday kicks off a new crabbing season, with dozens of boats expected to sail out of Dutch Harbor and other ports in pursuit of enormous Bristol Bay red king crab, a regal item on restaurant menus.

The king crab fishery is one of Alaska's most valuable seafood catches, worth at least $53 million at the docks last season. The catch limit is up 31 percent this year to 20.4 million pounds.

Another major harvest, snow crab, won't start in earnest until January.

Alaska crabbing used to be an obscure trade in which taut young men stood an equal chance of flying home rich or in a box. Today, people all over the country know crab captains and crewmen by name, voyaging vicariously aboard wave-battered boats by watching the top-rated Discovery Channel reality show "Deadliest Catch."

The show's cameras will be aboard several crab boats again this season.

Charlie Medlicott, a Coast Guard vessel safety examiner, was in Dutch Harbor on Friday, walking the docks and checking boats loading heavy steel crab traps onto their decks.

"I was telling the Discovery Channel guys the other day, 'You guys calling this show the "Deadliest Catch," you're wrong.' There are other fisheries around the country that have higher fatality rates," Medlicott said.

RACE IS OVER

Two major changes have come about in recent years to turn around the crab fleet's safety record, Coast Guard officials and industry players say.

First, and maybe most important, the Coast Guard in the fall of 1999 -- following yet another tragedy, the capsizing of the Kodiak boat Lin J, killing five -- began a campaign of dockside vessel-safety inspections and training that continues to this day.

On Friday, Medlicott was checking boats to make sure they weren't overloaded with traps, and that mandatory safety gear such as emergency beacons, survival suits and life rafts were in good order.

Violations are becoming uncommon, he said.

The second change was a revolution in how regulators manage the crabbing.

Until two years ago, hundreds of boats raced against each other to catch as many crab as possible before the limit was reached and the season closed. Sometimes the fishery lasted less than a week, and working hard in rough weather or without sleep could be the difference between a poor season and a killer payday for crabbers.

Now the racing days are over and each boat goes to sea with its own individual catch limit, a percentage share of the available crab.

The result of dividing, or rationing, the crab has resulted in slower, more relaxed crab fisheries, though some captains complain that certain packing houses rush boats to deliver their catches on a tight schedule.

No deaths have occurred since the new management style began in the fall of 2005.

The new management also has resulted in huge consolidation of the fleet, so fewer than 100 boats are expected to take part this season instead of the 250 or more seen in the past. That means fewer crabbers at risk on the water.

STILL DANGEROUS

But Coast Guard data show the crab fleet's lower death rate began well before the management change. In the eight years since the Coast Guard safety campaign began, eight crabbers have died, five of them when a single vessel, the Big Valley, capsized just hours before the snow crab fishery opened in January 2005.

A Coast Guard investigation found the boat was hauling too many traps, and the captain twice had been cited for overloading.

Spencer Bronson, captain of the crab boat Bulldog, said he's seen plenty of tragedy in his 30 years of crab fishing.

"Many people I've known are no longer with us," he said.

He credited the Coast Guard, along with the change in management, for helping push the crab fleet toward better safety in an occupation that remains risky, with crewmen working on icy, rolling decks with ropes and heavy gear that can easily crush a man or drag him overboard.

"Safety is more on people's minds than it used it used to be," said Bronson, 56, who's married with two kids just about to graduate from college. "Safety is a state of mind. It's not something you just dream about. It's something you've got to work at."

Find Wesley Loy's commercial fishing blog online at adn.com/highliner or call 257-4590.