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Stock Assessments

Photo: NOAA Fisheries

Kona Crab

Kona crab (Ranina ranina, also known as “spanner crabs”) are found throughout the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific region including around the Main Hawaiian Islands in waters of 2-200 m depth. Although now it is a small commercial fishery, Kona crabs have been fished in Hawai’i since the beginning of the 20th century and are caught using baited hoop nets deployed over sandy substrates. Currently, the Hawaiian fishery is strictly regulated by the state, and only male harvest is allowed.

The most recent assessment was conducted in 2019. The 2019 Kona crab assessment used a Bayesian surplus production model that fit annual biomass estimates to nominal catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data and commercial catch data from fishing years 1958-2016. This assessment was the first application of the open-source modeling software, Just Another Bayesian Biomass Assessment (JABBA) on a US domestic species.