large enough to support a profitable com- 

 mercial operation (U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, 1942). War conditions, however, made 

 any serious expansion of the fishery difficult 

 at that time. 



After the war, interest in the king crab 

 fishery increased, but technological and mar- 

 keting problems kept production low until 

 about 1950. Many of these problems have 

 been solved, with the result that the king 

 crab catch in Alaska waters increased from 

 1.5 million pounds in 1950 to almost 44 

 million pounds in 1961. 



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The U.S. commercial fishery during the 

 late 1940's and early 1950's concentrated in 

 the Bering Sea in locations proved productive 

 by Japanese factory ships before World War 

 II. Concurrently, commercial stocks were 

 being developed in the Cook Inlet, Kodiak, 

 and Alaska Peninsula areas. In 1953, U.S. 

 production in these new areas south of the 

 Alaska Peninsula exceeded that in the Bering 

 Sea, and since that year, efforts have been 

 concentrated on stocks south of the pe- 

 ninsula. Figure 1 shows the U.S. catch of 

 king crabs in each of the major production 

 areas. 



43,412,000 lbs. 



1946 AS '50 '52 54 "56 '58 "60 "62 

 Figure 1,--King crab catch by major production areas, Alaska, 1946-61, 



The U.S. Government submitted a request 

 for study of the southeastern Bering Sea 

 king crab stock to the International North 

 Pacific Fisheries Commission in February 

 1954. The problem to be studied was defined 

 as ". . . determining the need for joint con- 

 servation measures ... of that stock," One 

 phase of the investigation was to determine 

 if the crab populations in the Bering Sea 

 were discrete from the populations south of 

 the Alaska Peninsula. The tagging study re- 

 ported here was designed to answer this 

 question in part. 



Crabs for tagging were captured in crab 

 pots. Gulf of Mexico-type shrimp trawls, and 

 large-mesh otter trawls that were fished 

 from the chartered wesselTordenskjoldheVNeen 

 July 21 and October 1, 1957. Crabs smaller 

 than 100 mm. and females were not tagged 

 because they could not reasonably be expected 

 to be recovered by the selective male-only 

 fishery. Male king crabs were tagged with 

 loop tags, which were threaded through the 

 isthmus, and were immediately released at 

 the sites of capture. Tagging methods have 

 been described by E. J. Huizer (in Alaska 



