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"It costs me and it costs Southeast Alaska a lot," said Albie Moran of Juneau. The state Department of Fish and Game decided last week not to open the November king crab season.

Seventy-two commercial king crab permit-holders, as well as seafood processors in Juneau, Sitka and Petersburg, and cold-storage operators will be harmed by the loss of the commercial season, Moran said.

The Board of Fisheries will allow those 80,000 king crab to be harvested by personal-use crabbers.

Last year's harvest level for Southeast Alaska was 225,000 pounds, 47,000 from the waters around Juneau.

Moran said he and other commercial crab fishermen have felt the squeeze over decades as state officials have tightened their king crab season from months to less than two weeks. At the same time, commercial fishermen are getting smaller pieces of Southeast's king crab pie, he said.

About a third to a quarter of the region's commercial king crab fishermen are based in Juneau, where the 60 percent-40 percent split allocation between the personal and commercial king crab fisheries has generated heated debate in recent years.

Juneau's chairwoman for the Juneau-area Fish and Game advisory committee was out fishing and could not be reached for comment Friday.

The Petersburg-based chairman of the King and Tanner Task Force also could not be reached for comment.

Taku Fisheries in Juneau ships live king crabs to Seattle by plane and paid fishermen $6.50 to $6.75 per pound in 2002. A manager did not return phone calls Friday. Some fishermen last year said they got between $5 and $7 per pound statewide.

Some commercial crabbers don't believe that Fish and Game's survey is capturing a representative number of king crabs.

Al Tingley, a Fish and Game shellfish biologist, defended the survey, saying that it trapped king crabs from 80 percent of the Southeast fishing grounds. He said 80,000 legal-sized male crabs simply is not enough to sustain a commercial fishery.

He would not comment on whether it was sustainable for the personal-use fishery to catch the same number of crabs.

Sarah Gilbertson, a spokeswoman for Fish and Game, said that the department does not feel that Southeast king crabs are facing a conservation crisis.

"This population is not at the point that it can't sustain a harvest," she said, pointing to the personal-use fishery.

She described the personal use fishery as a "smaller, less-efficient harvest."

But Fish and Game recently announced it will close the red and blue king crab personal-use fisheries in Port Frederick and portions of Peril Strait and Seymour Canal on Sept. 12 because of reduced stocks.

Moran feels it is unfair that the 80,000 crabs the fishermen aren't allowed to catch in November are now legally available to personal-use crabbers.

Fishermen and the seafood industry aren't the only ones to lose out, Moran said. Local governments that collect a raw-fish tax also will lose some revenue, he said.

• Elizabeth Bluemink can be reached at elizabeth.bluemink@juneauempire.com.