The snow crab fishery: A Land & Sea archival special
The cod moratorium was still a decade away in 1982, but there were already signs of trouble. As cod stocks became increasingly unstable, especially inshore, fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador were looking in new directions.
One of those directions was toward snow crab, a growing industry in the province. At the time of this Land & Sea episode, about 28 million pounds of snow crab were caught each year, with a value of nearly $8 million.
In addition to the revenues from catches, snow crab also meant more money in fish processing for Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1982 there were 11 communities in the province with a plant that could process snow crab, and those plants were mostly located in inshore fishing towns like Bay de Verde. In total, the plants were providing jobs for nearly 2,000 workers.
Snow crab wasn't immune from problems of its own, of course. There were already rumours in the fish plants about lower catches that year, and of boats being forced to go further from shore in order to get good catches.
The Sco-Be-J was one of the boats that was heading further and further out in search of good snow crab catches. One of eight boats supplying the Bay de Verde fish plant, the vessel was heading six hours out from shore and had a slow start to its 1982 season.
In the end, the catch was expected t turn out just show of that for the year previous. But the worries, and the slower start, were a reminder that the fishery had to be well managed — even as fish harvesters hoped for more licenses for the species.
Learn more about the snow crab fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador in this episode of Land & Sea, available to watch in full on YouTube.
Want more Land & Sea? Click here to see a playlist of archival episodes on our YouTube channel, and you can watch more recent episodes on our CBC Gem streaming service here.
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