Fisker valuable snow crab on the wrong side of the border – HegnarOnline

The management of the new crab species is in its infancy. There is no agreement on quotas between Norway and Russia as it does with king crab. Norwegian authorities have opened for fishing for snow crab.

In Loophole
crab fishery takes place in the 67,000-acre Loophole. These are international waters, or “seas” because the economic zones can not go further out to sea than 200 nautical mil. Most of Loophole is the Russian side.

– Up to Russians
Norwegian and Russian vessels can fish in the economic zones and in Loophole on quotas laid down. The problem is that the crab is not a fish. Snow crab live on the seabed and Marine Research defines it as a sedentary (sedentary) species. Then it’s offshore boundaries, not fishing limits that determine ownership.

– When there is no loophole. As long as crab located on a continental shelf, the coastal state’s continental shelf that defines the ownership and management responsibility. It is strictly up to the Russian authorities how the crab should be managed, says research director Alf Håkon Hoel said.

Do not fiikeressurs
He is supported by havrettsekspert and law professor Tore Henriksen by UIT Norway’s Arctic University.

– It appears as if the snow crab is being managed as a fishing resource when Norwegian and European fishermen fishing snow crab in Loophole without Russians react negatively. If snow crab is a sedentary species and are located on the Russian side of the border, it is up to the Russian authorities to decide how and who should be fishing crab, says Henriksen said.

Going westward
Research Group Manager Carsten Hvingel at IMR in Tromso confirms that the enormous quantities of snow crab located on the Russian side of the Barents Sea.

– We expect it to continue westward and onto the Norwegian continental shelf. With a little patience it will be much snow crab on the Norwegian side also. Then crab fisheries emerge as a hobby fishing in comparison, say Hvingel.

It is only 19 years since the very first snow crab were recorded on Gåsbanken at Novaya Zemlya. There is much scientists do not know about the crab. If it has wandered north of Russia from the Bering Sea, or whether it has come with ballast water. There, however, they are confident, is that there are huge amounts of it now.

– When one looks at the Barents Sea ecosystem, we can also wonder about why it has not been here before. It is an ideal ecosystem for snow crab. We have tried to make estimates, but gets dizzy figures. Canadian experts believe that it is the world’s largest population of snow crab which is under development in the Barents Sea – and their calculations consistent with ours, says Hving.

Number two
calculations IMR shows that it is fully justifiable to withdraw between 50,000 and 75,000 tonnes over the next ten years. When stocks are fully developed, can the annual withdrawal be as high as 150,000 tons. With today kilo price of 25-40 dollars may firsthand the value of snow crab to be 1.5 to 6 billion annually. As we approach the value of the Norwegian cod catches in the North.

But there is some way to fishery achieves such dimensions. Figures from the Norwegian Raw Fish Organisation show that in 2014 the country was almost 1,900 tonnes of snow crab to a value of NOK 52.6 million from four Norwegian boats last year. Raw Fish Sales Association suppose catch doubled this year. (© NTB)