Potential impact of harvesting on Tanner crab (<i>Chionoecetes bairdi</i>) on state of its commercial stock off the coast of Kamchatka

Abstract

Potential impact of landing on the stock and biological state of Tanner crab is analyzed for two fishery districts at Kamchatka in 2013-2020. In the Kamchatka-Kuril fishery subzone, the number of commercial males without limbs and with old shell increased in catches that may be associated with active operations of alive-crab vessels in 2015-2017. In the Petropavlovsk-Commander fishery subzone, cases of injured Tanner crabs catch became frequent after resumption of the crab harvesting in 2017, as well as the cases of commercial crabs with old shell, that also could be explained by operations of alive-crab vessels. The operations of such vessels are distinguished by strict sorting of caught crabs with removing the individuals of lower quality. As the result, the crabs without limbs and commercial males at late stages before molting were accumulated in the areas of sorting. The problem can be solved by measures for total registration (weighting) of catch before the start of sorting, concerning to all crabs with commercial size landed aboard. To avoid degradation of the Tanner crab population, development of catch processing aboard fishing vessels is recommended, with transportation of frozen products instead of live crabs.

Keywords

• краб-стригун бэрда, камчатка, промысел, суда-живовозы, суда-процессоры, вылов на судо-сутки, травмированность, стадия состояния панциря