Climate change used to be something fishers in Alaska talked of as a concern for the future. No longer. That future is now. Alaska has witnessed, almost overnight, collapses in both fish and crab stocks. The cod of the Gulf of Alaska; the Bering Sea king crab and snow crab; and the Yukon River salmon. These collapses have devastated fishers—both commercial and subsistence.

Commercial fish and shellfish condition, survival, population biomass and catch have been negatively impacted by extreme events. They include the marine heat waves of 2014- 2016 and 2018-2019 in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, and the record low ice cover in the Bering Sea. Alaska fishers and coastal communities that depend on vulnerable commercial fish species such Pacific cod, salmon and crab have experienced significant economic losses that are ongoing. Negatively impacted species support high-revenue fisheries and a large proportion of Alaska fishers’ earnings, as also the US fishery harvest value.