Do cheap Russian imports undercut Alaska’s crab industry?
Due to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, imported Russian crab is cheaper than Alaskan crab and drives U.S. crab prices down. Between 2000 and 2014, Alaskan crabbers lost an estimated $600 million from the presence of illegal Russian crab in domestic and global markets, according to a 2014 World Wildlife Fund report. An Anchorage newspaper reported in January that Russian seafood imports into the U.S. have grown nearly 70% since 2014.
Russia and the U.S. have increased efforts to track and penalize illegal crab harvests over the past decade. In 2018, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration implemented a monitoring program to trace the origins of king crab and other imported seafood, requiring importers to report key data to the agency.
