Assessment of the 1986 fishery for snow crab, Chionoecetes opilio, off the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton Island / by Robert W. Elner and David A. Robichaud.: Fs70-8/87-86E-PDF

"Biological monitoring data (based upon fishermen's logbooks, sales slip statistics and commercial catch sampling) were examined for the Cape Breton Island (Atlantic coast, areas 2-6) snow crab fishery in 1986. Assessments for each stock were made by comparison of the monitoring data against historical patterns. Since 1978 the snow crab fisheries in areas 2-6 have been based on a resource with low or sporadic recruitment. The accumulated virgin biomass has been drastically reduced by fishing. Management dropped catch controls for the fishery in 1982 to allow fishermen to take advantage of whatever productivity occurs from time to time on an opportunistic basis. The minimum legal size of 95 mm, carapace width was thought to confine exploitation to males that had been mature for 1-3 years. Thus, the reproductive potential of the resource has been believed to be protected. However, up to approximately 50% of the commercial-sized males sampled in areas 3, 5, and 6 during 1986 were morphometrically immature; the biological implications of this situation are unclear"--Abstract, page 2.

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