Seventy-five percent of the crabs were intact, 

 with no appendage injuries. Twenty-five percent 

 of all crabs had injured limbs; 18% had missing, 

 5% had regenerating, and 2% had damaged ap- 

 pendages. No relationship existed between cara- 

 pace width and appendage injury. 



Most of the Dungeness crabs sampled were in 

 the worn-shell condition (67%). Twenty-eight per- 

 cent of all crabs were new-shelled. Only 1% were 

 soft-shelled and 4% were skip-molts. Correlations 

 between carapace condition and appendage in- 

 jury were not significant. 



No significant differences existed in appendage 

 injury between male and female Dungeness 

 crabs. Injuries were bilaterally symmetrical ex- 

 cept for the 3d walking leg which was missing 

 more frequently on the left side (P < 0.05). Con- 

 sidering only those crabs with missing legs, a 

 total of 246 legs were missing with a mean of 

 1.5 ±0.1 missing legs/crab. Ninety-seven crabs 

 had legs missing on the right side and 98 had legs 

 missing on the left side. The maximum number of 

 missing legs per crab was 5. Sixty percent of the 

 crabs had 1 leg missing, 20% had 2 missing legs, 

 and 12% were missing 3 or more legs. Of the crabs 

 with missing legs, 63% were males and 37% were 

 females. 



Forty Dungeness crabs had regenerating legs, 

 with a mean of 1.2 ± 0.1 regenerating legs per 

 crab. Sixty percent of those crabs had 1 regenerat- 

 ing leg, 10% had 2 regenerating legs, and 3% had 

 3 or more regenerating legs. The maximum num- 

 ber of regenerating legs per crab was 4. Of the 

 crabs with regenerating legs, 73% were males 

 and 27% were females. 



Seventeen crabs had damaged appendages with 

 a mean of 1.1 ± 0.1 damaged appendages/crab. Of 

 the crabs with damaged appendages, 82% were 

 males and 18% were females. 



The observed number of Dungeness crabs with 

 2 or more missing appendages was significantly 

 higher (P <0.01) than expected for both sexes, 

 indicating that appendage loss was not due only 

 to chance. 



Appendage injury was significantly correlated 

 with date, with more injuries occurring later in 

 the year. The number of Dungeness crabs with 

 missing appendages was significantly correlated 

 with date for both males and females (P < 0.01). 

 The lowest percentage of crabs with injured ap- 

 pendages occurred in July (4.8%, both sexes com- 

 bined) and increased to a maximum of 34.3% in 

 November. The percentage of male crabs with re- 

 generating appendages did not vary significantly 



over time and was about 6% for all months. How- 

 ever, the percentage of female crabs with regener- 

 ating legs increased from 0% in May to 10.5% in 

 November (P < 0.01). Male crabs with damaged 

 appendages increased from 0% to 8.5% from May 

 to October (P < 0.05) and then decreased to 1.7% 

 in November. 



Chelipeds and 1st and 4th walking legs were 

 injured most frequently. The hierarchy for fre- 

 quency of injury for female crabs (chelipeds > 4th 

 walking legs > 1st, 2d, and 3d walking legs) dif- 

 fered slightly from the hierarchy for males (che- 

 lipeds > 1st walking legs > 4th walking legs > 2d 

 and 3d walking legs). Months in which high per- 

 centages of crabs had injured chelipeds also had 

 high percentages with injured 1st (males) and 4th 

 (females) walking legs (Fig. 1). 



The temporal incidence of appendage injury in 

 Dungeness crabs was compared to life history 

 events and to the commercial crab fishing season 

 in southeastern Alaska (Fig. 2). The season 

 opened 15 June and closed 15 August, reopened 

 1 October and closed 28 February 1986. Ap- 

 pendage injuries were low in July and increased 

 157% from July to August, a period of simulta- 

 neous molting, mating, and fishing. An addi- 

 tional increase in appendage injury of 43% oc- 

 curred in October, even though the fishery was 

 closed from 16 August to 30 September. 



Discussion 



Pot samples are biased towards larger sized 

 Dungeness crabs because of the size of the mesh 

 on the pot and the presence of two escape rings 

 with diameters of 11 cm. However, 62% of the 

 crabs collected for this study were either male 

 crabs with carapace widths <165 mm or were 

 females. Very few soft-shell crabs were caught, 

 even though molting was occurring during part of 

 the sampling period. Our dependence on commer- 

 cial crabbers for data collection restricted us to 

 sampling mostly during the open fishing season 

 when most of the crabs were not in the soft- 

 shelled condition. 



Twenty-five percent of the Dungeness crabs 

 sampled in southeastern Alaska had appendage 

 injuries. In other studies of Dungeness crabs in 

 Washington, Oregon, and the Columbia River es- 

 tuary, 18%, 32%, and 62%, respectively, of the 

 crabs were injured (Cleaver 1949; Waldron 1958; 

 Durkin et al. 1984). The crabs examined in our 

 study were held for up to 24 hours in crowded 

 tanks on board ship before being measured and 



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