General organizing principles of a unified strategy for managing crabs and King crabs fishery in the seas of Russia
2017
Alekseev, D.O. | Buyanovsky, A.I. | Bizikov, V.A.
Russian crab fishery yields around 60 thousand tons annually and is based mainly on the four commercial crab species: Red King crab (= Kamchatka crab; Paralithodes camtschaticus), Blue King crab (Paralithodes platypus), Opilio Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) and Baird’s Snow crab (= Tanner Snow crab, Chionoecetes bairdi). Basing on the monitoring and fishery statistics data, general fishery decision-making rules for implementing the harvesting strategy using the precautionary approach have been elaborated for 31 commercial stocks of the four crab species in the Russian Far East Seas and the Barents Sea. Elaboration of the fishery decisionmaking rules was carried out through common approach that included the analysis of available information and the stock assessment methods, establishing the stock status zones by defining the Limit and Target Reference Points, analysis of population dynamics in previous years and establishing long-term targets and harvest strategy for each given stock. Depending on the population abundance in relation to the Reference Points and dominating trend in population dynamic, the status for each of 31 commercial crab stocks was defined according following six grades: growing stock, stable stock, declining stock, recovering stock, depressive stock, uncertain stock and the virgin stock. The stock status was taken into account for elaboration the decision-making rules and the harvesting strategy for each stock. Unified harvest-control rules for commercial crab stocks are aimed at enhancing long-term sustainability of Russian crab fisheries
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