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Red King Crab

 Young red king crabs know that there’s safety in numbers — to protect themselves from predators, they come together in pods of up to half a million individuals!

 

Red king crabs have a distinctive look with their dark red body, heavily armored shell, and fan-shaped tail. On average, adults grow to be 22 centimeters (8.7 inches) long and weigh 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Found throughout the northern Pacific Ocean, adults migrate seasonally — spending most of the year in deep waters on the seafloor and moving to shallow waters in the late winter and early spring to mate. In both shallow and deep waters, younger crabs tend to form pods — which can contain hundreds of thousands of individuals — to protect themselves from predators. 

Once red king crabs are over four years old, they typically are so large and so heavily armored that they have few predators and no longer depend heavily on pods for protection, although sea otters, sculpins (large bottom-dwelling fish), and Korean hair crabs all still may be possible predators. The crabs themselves are opportunistic carnivores, feeding on a wide variety of prey including fish, mollusks, marine worms, and other crustaceans.

 

 

 In the past, red king crabs were a very lucrative fishery, but intense commercial harvesting led to severe catch reductions. Currently, recent stock assessments indicate that none of the four populations of red king crabs are being overfished, although the population of these crabs is unknown, and it is thought that their numbers have reduced from overharvesting.

 

 

To combat overfishing of these animals, a fishery management plan has been put in place in the United States by NOAA. As part of this, fishers can only catch male crabs that have reached a certain size during specific times of the year. The plan also sets harvest limits and stipulates gear regulations to reduce bycatch. Management plans like this are key to ensuring depleted fisheries can recover, which is why Oceana campaigns for science-based policies in countries around the world to mitigate the effects of overfishing and increase the number of fisheries with management plans and catch limits. Learn more about our work and how you can get involved here.

 

 

 

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