A World Wildlife Fund report found the illegal overharvesting of king crabs and snow crabs is damaging the global economy and local ecosystems.

 

The report, Illegal Russian Crab: An investigation of trade flow found illegally caught crab from Russia is regularly sold to the United States and other countries. Exporters falsify shipping records, mislabel the crabs, or transport the crustaceans to another country for reshipment to their final destination to hide the seafood’s origins, according to the WWF.

 

That’s having a direct effect on ecosystems in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk—home to roughly half the annual seafood catch for both Russia and the United States—and putting crab stocks at risk of collapse.

 

How do the contraband crabs get past security and onto our plates?

 

It’s a combination of foreign ships catching crab illegally in Russian waters and Russian-flagged vessels overharvesting or illegally trapping the animals.

 

The unlawful fishing practices cost the global community upwards of $23 billion annually, Kuruc added. About 77 percent of U.S.-eaten king crab comes from Russia, while Alaska supplies about 17 percent. The illegal Russian crab directly affects the Alaskan crab industry by driving down U.S. retail prices.

 

What’s worse is that the U.S. government can’t figure out how much illegal crab is laundered.

 

“The current U.S. system for seafood imports is not able to detect or block every shipment of illegally harvested crab,” the report stated. “Seafood tracking systems that verify legality are not in common practice.”

 

Russia bears some but not all of the blame. “The Russian government has recognized for years that there is corruption and widespread illegal activity in its fisheries sector,” the WWF said in a statement.

 

So what should the United States and other countries do? On a global scale, better port control and improved monitoring of fishing and the seafood trade are needed.