Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

than 50 m. The oceanography of the SEBS and NAS vicinities has recently
been summarized in Hood and Calder (1981); hydrography and circulation
are reviewed by Kinder and Schumacher (1981a, b). The sedimentary environment
and substrates in the area have been summarized by Sharma
(1979).
1.3 Life History and General Biology of the Red King Crab
1.3.1 Distribution and Abundance: Benthic Juveniles and Adults
Red king crab (Paralithodes camtschatica) are widely distributed from
the Sea of Japan in the western Pacific through the Kuril Islands to
the Kamchatka Peninsula, across to the southeastern Bering Sea and as
far south as British Columbia in the eastern Pacific (Marukawa 1933;
Vinogradov 1946; Weber 1967). The species is rather uncommon north of
latitude 57°N and is characterized as part of the subarctic-boreal
faunistic system (Neyman 1963, 1969). Further, Russian scientists
rarely find it in large numbers north of the Anadyr faunistic barrier (a
line from the Anadyr River to St. Matthew Island), in marked contrast to
the blue king crab which ranges farther north and seems to inhabit
colder water (Slizkin 1973).
In the SEBS where a major fishery is centered, information on distribution
and abundance of red king crab in these shelf areas is more
comprehensive than for any other decapod fished by U.S. fleets. For
more than 12 years, the NMFS has conducted broadscale trawl surveys
in the southeastern Bering Sea, and Otto (1981) provides a history
of information gathered by Japanese and Russian fleets during their
participation in the fishery. A series of annual reports by the International
North Pacific Fisheries Commission (INPFC) since the late 1950s
provides a continuum of detailed data on king and also Tanner crab
(Chionoecetes spp.) stocks in the southeastern Bering Sea as well as in
other locations fished by member nations.
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