Table 3.— Japanese eastern Bering Sea king crab statistics, 1961-62 



One case contains 24 pounds of meat. 



commercial catch to the equivalent of 185,000 

 twenty-four-pound cases for tlie years 1965 and 1966. 

 The Japanese reached the quota in both years; they 

 caught about 4.2 million crabs each year. In November 

 1966 the agreement was extended for 2 more years, but 

 the annual Japanese quota was reduced to 163,000 

 cases. 



Since it began in 1930. tiie Japanese have carried on 

 their king crab fishery on the vast Continental Shelf 

 north of the Alaska Peninsula. The fleets normally begin 

 fishing north of Unimak Island and by early summer 

 have worked progressively east to north of Port Moller. 

 Late in the season they reversed this pattern and stopped 

 fishing when they were north of Unimak Island. In 

 1965-66, the Japanese also fished for king crab just east 

 of the Pribilof Islands. One tleet operated in that area 

 for 1 or 2 months in each of these years. They caught 

 blue king crabs, which, although a different species, are 

 quite similar to the crabs caught north of the Alaska 

 Peninsula. Japanese sources have continually reported 

 that their fleets experienced severe competition with the 

 Soviet crab fleets on the Bristol Bay flats north of the 

 Alaska Peninsula and implied that the shift to the 



King crab being removed from Japanese tangle net gear in the 

 eastern Bering Sea. The "kawasaki" or picker boats retrieve 

 tangle nets, and the crabs are removed from the net as it is 

 brought aboard. Both the crab and the nets are returned to the 

 factory ship where the crabs are canned and nets are 

 subsequently transferred to trawlers for resetting. 



Pribilof area was to avoid gear losses caused by such 

 conflicts. Immediately after the Soviet crab fleets left 

 the eastern Bering Sea in 1965-66. the Japanese fleet 

 that was fishing near the Pribilofs returned to the 

 grounds north of the Alaska Peninsula. 



Historically the Japanese have fished for king crab 

 with tangle nets which are anchored on the sea bed and 

 entangle the crabs. Each trawler sets nets that cover 

 about 10 square miles. The amount of time the tangle 

 nets soak, or fish, before being hauled and picked 

 depends on tiie abundance of crabs, and generally varies 

 from 1 to 6 weeks. Kawasakis carried in davits on the 

 factory ships retrieve the nets. The crabs are removed as 

 the nets are brought aboard the kawasakis, and both the 

 nets and the crabs are delivered to the factory sliips. 



Japanese crab factory ship in eastern Bering Sea. Japanese crab 

 factory ships are accompanied by five special tangle net setting 

 trawlers (not pictured) and carry up to 12 "kawasaki" or picker 

 boats like the one slung in the forward davit and the one in the 

 water alongside. The vertical bamboo poles atop the house and 

 astern of the factory ship support platforms of tangle nets. 



King crab meat being shaken from the shells in a Japanese 

 factory ship in the eastern Bering Sea. Complete processing is 

 done on the fishing grounds, largely by hand labor. 



10 



