| Summary: | The Pribilof Island blue king crab (Paralithodes platypus) is the only overfished Alaskan crab stock. The fishery was closed in 1998 and the stock declared overfished in 2002. Despite no directed fishing, the stock has not improved since 2002. The reasons for the decline and the lack of recovery are unknown and data is needed to help illuminate these questions. In 1983 and 1984, during a period when the stock was healthy, Dr. David Armstrong led a series of three cruises that extensively examined every life-history stage of the blue king crab from larvae to adults. These data included zooplankton tows to examine larval crab distributions; beam trawl and rock dredge samples to examine the distribution and abundance of both crabs and the benthic community; and side-scan sonar traces to determine habitat type. This data set is an invaluable reference point for researchers trying to determine if and how the ecosystem has changed since the blue king crab stock crashed, and what factors may be inhibiting its recovery. Because there were previously no usable electronic copies available of these data, we have performed a data-rescue project with support from the North Pacific Research Board. The data from these cruises has been re-entered and is now available to all researchers. Please note that this metadata record has been provided to facilitate discovery of the data and a more complete metadata record can be found in the Prib_Metadata.xml file included with the dataset.
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