ALASKA KING CRAB INVESTIGATIONS, 1940 



By WALDO L. SCHMITT 



Curator, Division of Marine Invertebrates, U. S. National Museum 



Many of us have relished the "fancy deep-sea crab meat" packed by 

 the Japanese, but few of us are aware that much of it is said to come 

 from water adjacent to our own Alaskan Bering Sea coast. The 

 crustacean from which this delectable crab meat is derived is the king 

 crab (Paralithodes camtschaticiis) . It represents a potentially valuable 

 resource of the sea as yet unexploited by American fishing interests. 

 For this reason the United States Fish and Wildlife Service sent out 

 an expedition to Alaska to investigate the biology of the king crab 

 and its commercial fishing prospects. 



A small floating cannery, the M. S. Tondcleyo, and a trawl boat, the 

 Dorothy, were chartered and provided with necessary equipment, 

 crew, and scientific staff, including Joseph Puncochar, technologist 

 and canning expert in charge of canning methods and allied experi- 

 mental work ; Roy Christey, economist, to study costs of operations 

 in all their phases; Carl Carlson, fishery expert, in charge of com- 

 mercial gear and studies regarding the relative efficiency of the vari- 

 ous types of gear employed in catching crabs ; C. J. Pertuit, graduate 

 student of the University of Washington, assistant biologist ; and the 

 writer, representing the United States National Museum, biologist 

 and leader of the field party; master of the Dorothy, Capt. Ellsworth 

 F. Trafton ; and master of the Tondeleyo, Capt. A. V. Nelsen, who 

 also acted as superintendent of cannery and commercial fishing 

 operations. 



The area designated for investigation this year lay south of the 

 Alaska Peninsula and extended from Ikatan Bay on the west to 

 Shelikof Strait between Kodiak Island and the mainland in the east, 

 from the shallower waters inshore out to the effective range of the 

 gear with which we were furnished — about 90 fathoms of water. 



We left Seattle on August 28, and the cruise up the Inside Passage 

 was warm and sunny. Several brief stops formed enjoyable breaks in 

 the trip. 



At Ketchikan we consulted with the Assistant Director of the Fish 

 and Wildlife Service, Charles E. Jackson, and R. W. Harrison of 

 the Service's technological laboratory in Seattle, who has direct charge 

 of the king crab investigation in its entirety. Petersburg, which I 



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