This page is not available You may need permission to access this page. Internet Explorer lacks support red king crab the features of this website. Population The Pribilof Islands and Norton Sound stocks are above target population levels.
The Bristol Bay stock is below the target level, but fishing rate promotes population growth. The Western Aleutian Islands stock is unknown. Fishing Rate The Bristol Bay and Norton Sound stocks are at recommended levels. The Pribilof Islands and Western Aleutian Islands stocks are closed to fishing for red king crab. Habitat Impacts Habitat impacts from crab pots are minor because fishing occurs in areas of soft sediment, such as silt and mud, which are unlikely to be damaged by fishing gear. Bycatch Regulations are in place to minimize bycatch.
Summary stock assessment information can be found on Stock SMART. Fishing has been closed for red king crab in the Pribilof Islands and Western Aleutian Islands for many years. Appearance Red king crabs are the largest of the commercially harvested crabs. They range in color from brownish to bluish red and are covered in sharp spines.
They have three pairs of walking legs and one pair of claws. One is a large, heavy-duty claw that is used for crushing prey, and the other smaller claw is used for more delicate handling of food items. Determining the sex of red king crabs is easy. Males have a triangular abdominal flap and females have a rounded one.
Biology Red king crabs can grow to be very large, up to 24 pounds with a leg span of 5 feet. Males grow faster and larger than females. Female red king crabs reproduce once a year and release between 50,000 and 500,000 eggs. Larvae hatch from eggs looking like tiny shrimp. The larvae feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton for 2 to 3 months before metamorphosing into tiny crabs and settling on the ocean bottom. After molting they are soft and vulnerable to predators until their new shell hardens. Red king crabs eat almost anything they can find and crush with their claws.
Smaller crabs eat algae, small worms, small clams, and other small animals. Larger crabs eat a much wider range of items including worms, clams, mussels, barnacles, crabs, fish, sea stars, sand dollars, and brittle stars. Smaller crabs are eaten by a variety of groundfish, octopi, sea otters, and crabs, including other red king crabs. Large red king crabs have few predators except right after molting.
Where They Live Range In North American waters, red king crabs are found in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, and south to British Columbia, Canada. Older juveniles form pods that travel together, mounding up during the day and feeding at night. Pods can consist of tens of thousands of individual crabs and are likely an anti-predator strategy, similar to schooling in fish. Aleutian Islands King and Tanner Crabs, which defers management of crab fisheries to the State of Alaska with federal oversight. Every year, managers set the harvest limit for the next fishing season using the most recent estimates of crab abundance. Managers allocate shares of the harvest among harvesters, processors, and coastal communities through the crab rationalization program, which was implemented in 2005 to address economic, safety, and environmental issues in the fishery.
Managers monitor catch in real time and are able to close the fishery when the harvest limit is reached. They collect data on catch and bycatch and document any violations of fishing regulations. 73 million, according to the NOAA Fisheries commercial fishing landings database. Red king crab are mainly harvested in Bristol Bay. Some catch also comes from fisheries in Norton Sound.
Gear types, habitat impacts, and bycatch: Mesh-covered pots that are 7 to 8 square feet are used to catch red king crab. Only male crabs can legally be caught and sold. Pacific cod, Pacific halibut, other flatfish, sponges, coral, and sea stars. Habitat impacts from the red king crab fishery are minor because fishing occurs in areas of soft sediment such as silt and mud.