FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 82, NO. 3 



December 1983, of which about half, 4.6 million, 

 would be males subject to the commercial fishery. If 

 an equivalent number of crabs were available from 

 the 1980 recruitment to Willapa Bay, a large bay 

 equaling or exceeding Grays Harbor in area and 

 located about 20 km south, then about 9.2 million 

 legal male crabs of estuarine origin might be avail- 

 able to the commercial fishery in 1984-85 from 

 larvae and early instars that utilized these two 

 Washington estuaries in 1980-81. 



Washington coastal crab landings for the period 

 1971-80 have averaged 3,500 t/yr (PMFC 1981), or 

 about 3.85 million crabs (at 0.9 kg/crab). Thus, 

 these two bays could theoretically serve as nursery 

 grounds for more than enough crabs necessary to 

 maintain a viable commercial fishery in Washing- 

 ton. However, landings over the past 40 yr have 

 fluctuated from 1,000 to 8,000 t, with a 9-12 yr 

 period, so it is impossible to predict how the esti- 

 mated contribution of the 1980 year class will 

 compare to 1984 commercial landings. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



This study represents a portion of a Ph.D. dis- 

 sertation submitted to the University of Washing- 

 ton School of Fisheries by B. G. Stevens, and was 

 supported by Contract Nos. DACW-67-80-C-0086 

 and DACW-67-81-M-1096 from the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Washington De- 

 partment of Fisheries (WDF). Support for B. Ste- 

 vens was also received from the University of 

 Washington Graduate School in the form of a 

 Sarah Denny Graduate Research Fellowship. We 

 are greatly indebted to J. C. Hoeman for his assis- 

 tance with field sampling, and to J. Armstrong and 

 R. Thorn, USACE, for their advice and support 

 throughout the study. We extend appreciation to 

 S. Barry and R. Westley, WDF, for their roles in 

 project administration. We are also grateful to J. 

 Little and R. Cusimano for their field and labora- 

 tory assistance, to the many paid and volunteer 

 students who assisted us, especially G. McKeen, 

 W Latan, and J. Garcia, and to four anonymous 

 reviewers for their helpful comments. We also 

 thank V. Munzlinger (University of Wash.) for typ- 

 ing the first draft, and S. Cooke, Y. Wilson, and D. 

 Miller (Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va.) for 

 assistance with graphics. 



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