In 1991, the 300-person village of Bugoynes, along Norway's far northern border with Russia, was practically destitute. The cod population had collapsed, depriving fishermen of income and the town of its only industry. Around the same time, the town placed an ad in the national newspaper looking to move all of its inhabitants to anywhere that would take them. A prehistoric-looking crustacean started showing up in the nets of local fishermen. Thanks to this invasive transplant, exported to Russia's west coast in the Stalin-era Soviet Union, and the invasion of Ukraine decades later, the village's fortunes have reversed. King crab came as a menace but has been a savior. All the countries are very hungry for crabs. You can sell something for 700 kroners or $70 from your fishing boats. Of course, that's big money. And in Bugoynes, you measure success in how many millionaires you have there.

It's a total shift in how we do fisheries. In 2022, Russia controlled 94% of the market for king crab. That was until the nation's invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions on Russian seafood that came with it. Now, there was only one place for the western world to buy it. Once hated by the locals of Bugoynes, suspicious that it was responsible for the decline in the population of cod, red king crab became an industry worth billions, a delicacy complete with foodie influencers singing its praises. Hey, foodie fam. If you love crab, this is your new favorite spot. In the harbor where once three boats were docked, now there are hundreds. Norway exported almost all the 5.4 million pounds of king crab it caught in 2023, a 42% annual increase worth $110 million. One of the fishermen hauling in these mammoths

is Erling Haugen. This is the main boat. So, me and Ulef are owning this boat together. And I have another boat; it's an old boat. The first five years, this was nearly bankrupt every year, and I have been a fisherman for about 12 years now. And before that, starting with the Nordic King Crab factory, and I stayed there for about three, four years. And then I understand that the fishermen have better days than I have. So then I quit and start fishing. It's really cold. It's about six plus today. It's about 120 meters. It's a lot of crabs who have just molted. You see here, these crabs we are throwing back to the sea; they are too damaged here, crabs with damage there, damage, two small legs here. And then they have a very, very small close. So when they are losing their legs, it'll grow out again.

And this is a good haul of the crabs. Apart from sanctions against Russia, prices for these bottom dwellers have remained sky-high because of quotas put into place to keep the crab population healthy. It is totally fair because it's overfished. It's about 60% lesser quota than last year. It's about 730 kilos this year. And last year, it was 2,300? Yeah. Along with the shipping of live king crab, a cottage industry of tourism has sprung up in the region for those who want to fish for themselves. Advertisements for king crab safaris dot the landscape. That is the plastic industry. It's kind of Disneyland. I am not a hundred percent sure, but some of them are catching crabs, placing them on the waiting pods, and then they're going over to the tourists, and wow, look, here is a lot of crabs, but they already have catch. So it is tricky things.

Tourism and quotas are something that the mayor of nearby Kirkenes sees as a part of building a sustainable region. Welcome to the most exciting city in the world, in Europe. You are now three and a half hours away from Severomorsk, where the Northern Fleet and Russian nuclear subs are at port. This is a really important place. We are a municipality experiencing optimism in fish farming and fishery. This is the place to be and this is the place to visit. We have to have some principles in politics. If you base your politics on populism, in the end, you will hurt yourself. My freedom stops where your freedom starts. And without quotas for king crab, it will not be sustainable. And then we're stealing from the future generations. With tourism, more money flows into our society. More people get a job, a high-paying job, an exciting job. More young people move here.

So I believe that if we try to build that bigger travel industry, we will also be big and more modern and more urban society. The fish factory went bankrupt in the late eighties, along the coastline of Finmark, manufacturers went bankrupt, also this one. It was closed for many years, and then it was only the building standing left. Today's owners bought it, bought the factory, and started this development of the way of buying crabs, keep them alive inside the factory for days, weeks. So these barrels is now packed with crabs, king crabs. There is, yeah, 225, 230 kilo-ish of king crabs inside. We have sea water flowing in, and also added air so the crabs can survive during the stay in there. And then when the truck arrives, we put these barrels into the truck. And also in the truck we have air hoses, which we connect.

Yeah, by driving for two and a half, three days. So the crabs stay alive. I would say that our parents' generation fed us with the frozen seafood. And now the younger generation want to have the knowledge, where does the seafood or the food is coming from? We are tagging every individual crab we have. That's very helpful for us internally. Into that QR code we are using, we're adding information about the fishermen. We're adding some history into that, telling the fishermen's story, and also the size of the crabs. And now we can see this is a strong, vital crab. I can feel his legs is full of meat. 80 to 90% fill. This one is tagged. What is the weight on this one? Let's see, 3.5 kilo. You can find the capture date. The tag number. And also this is, let's say cold, when you're selling this crab, yeah.

Despite sanctions against Russia, Russian crab keeps making its way into Western markets. In 2019, Norwegian police uncovered a network that was illegally catching and exporting 100,000 pounds of red king crab. Organized crime is organized crime, and people that openly violate sanctions against Russia are making money on the blood spilled in Ukraine. When you have such an extremely fine product as a king crab, it's a high-cost product, it's for the high-end restaurants, then there will always be bad apples. With this product, of course, the income for fishermen is more predictable, and that money is going back to the local society. And so the king crab in the past and today in the future is creating jobs in this small society. With the king crab, you have a sure income. It's easier to fish, say with king crab or pots than with traditional cod fishing. So of course, it's easier. The revenue is huge and the profits are huge,

and it gives a small society like Sor-Varanger and especially Bugoynes a strong pillar of economy. It's unknown how sturdy that pillar can be. Snow and king crab fisheries in Alaska have been suspended in recent years due to high temperatures beyond what the species can take. According to a 2018 study, temperatures around the Bering Sea have sharply increased since the mid-2000s. We know that the seawater temperature is going up. Statistic it's shown, not so much, but it's shown. But it's of course difficult to say if this species, king crab is affected on that.

How War Made King Crab Big Business in Norway

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