Alaskan snow crab fishery, walloped by climate change, may never fully recover.

The Alaskan snow crab fishery in the Bering Sea has suffered a dramatic collapse due to a marine heat wave caused by climate change. The fishery, which typically yields a harvest worth $200 million or more annually, was closed down for the first time in history. While there is hope that the fishery will reopen in the future as water temperatures cool and young crabs become more plentiful, a recent study suggests that the long-term outlook is uncertain. The study indicates that conditions more closely resembling a boreal climate, which are now 200 times more likely to occur than in the mid-1800s, are detrimental to snow crabs. The collapse of the fishery has had severe economic consequences for fishing communities, and scientists are concerned about the implications for other fisheries around the world. [Extracted from the article]