Abstract

Commercial and recreational stone crab (Menippe mercenaria) fisheries primarily occur along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States and the northeastern Caribbean. This unique claw-only fishery operates under the premise that harvested crabs that are returned to the ocean alive may survive to generate their claws and potentially re-enter the fishery, however, a wide range of survival rates casts doubt on the true sustainability of this fishery. We conducted a lab experiment to test two different methods of claw removal- the traditional and most common-ly used method against a new induced autotomy (self-removal) method- and found a 28% increase in survival (up to 92% survival throughout the study) when using the new method, compared to the typical method of claw removal (64% survival throughout the study). Most notably, our results suggest that our new method of claw removal significantly increases post-release survival of stone crabs independent of harvester and whether one claw or both claws are removed, meaning it could be implemented into commercial or recreational fisheries with similar outcomes. Following the experiment, we ran a series of training workshops for commercial harvesters and fishery managers in The Bahamas to discuss best practices, the feasibility of implementation and tool design to facilitate this new claw removal method.

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