Of course it is all market driven and the market place includes Dungeness being caught from California to Alaska and sold to whomever in the world is willing to pay the best price. If the Asian market is willing to pay for cherries shipped by air you can bet they will pay for crab flown on that same airplane. What little bit we are talking about here wouldn't make a ripple in local availability and/or price.

I do recall some comments about crabbers having other jobs and/or participating in other fisheries. Just a quick number crunch. Average commercial catch (2005-2009) in P.S. was 2,766,034 pounds. Divide that by 249 permits and the holder of each permit, on average, would catch about 11,109 pounds. I don't have a current buyer price but one from a couple of years ago was $2.19. Using that you arrive at gross sales of $24,328.71. Guess that explains why some commercial crabbers have purchased more than one permit with the additional 100 pots they can run with that second permit or have a shore job and/or participate in other fisheries.

One crabber bemoaned the fact that he had researched this fishery 5 years ago and decided to plunk down $75K to purchase a permit. Given what was in the wind regarding re-allocation I figure he did not do a very good job of researching or working up a business plan.