This networking project was started in the beginning of 2024 to increase collaboration between institutes working on snow crab research in Norway, Canada, Greenland and Denmark. The first workshop was hosted earlier this year by the Fisheries and Marine Institute (MI) of the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
The second workshop of this project was aimed to address common sustainability challenges in snow crab fisheries, this time especially focusing on bycatch of undersized and juvenile snow crab and problems caused by abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded snow crab pots.
Snow crab fisheries are taking place in the Arctic areas and are often using conical baited pots for capturing crabs. These fisheries, such as snow crab fishery in Norway, are often conducted in areas that are located long distance from the coast and are challenged by rough weather conditions and drift ice that can complicate snow crab pot retrieval and can result in gear losses. In Norway, it is believed that many pots are lost at sea each season. Such pots will result in marine plastic pollution and potential for continuously capturing snow crab (known as ghost fishing). In earlier experiments the estimated ghost fishing rate of such lost snow crab pots over time after decay of bait averaged to 8% (with upper limit reaching 13%) to that of commercial catches by baited snow crab pots. Further experiments showed difference in this ghost fishing rate due to presence of ghost fished crabs; however, the extent of the problem can become considerable. Due to the same pot construction, similar challenges could be present also in other snow crab fisheries, such as in Canada and Greenland.
Therefore, this second workshop discussed potential use of additional escape mechanisms in pots (in addition to netting meshes) to improve size selectivity through reduction of bycatch and associated mortality of undersized crabs and potential to use biodegradable plastic materials in pots to limit plastic pollution. The participants involved in the workshop onboard Helmer Hanssen included project partners from MI and UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Heriot-Watt University (Scotland), students, and participants from snow crab fishing industry (Dsolve partner Opilio) and Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries. During the research cruise, we also conducted an experiment and data collection using modified pots with the proposed escape mechanism prototype for future snow crab fisheries. These experiments were carried out successfully, including measurements of a large number of crabs. Following several presentations and discussions onboard, the meeting was concluded by an online meeting with other project participants discussing preliminary results from these experiments.
The resulting data will provide a valuable overview of potential solutions for increasing sustainability in this fishery. We hope that these activities would initiate further collaboration by the involved institutes, linking to similar objectives as those of CRI Dsolve such as reducing ghost fishing and marine plastic pollution.
