| Summary: | Thirteen bottom trawl surveys conducted in Alaska waters forred king crab, Paralithodes camtschaticus, during 1940–61 are largely forgotten today even though they helped define our current knowledge of this resource. Governmentpublications on six exploratory surveys (1940–49, 1957) included sample locations and some catch composition data, but these documents are rarely referenced. Only briefsummaries of the other seven annual (1955–61) grid-patterned trawl surveys from the eastern Bering Sea were published. Although there have been interruptions insampling and some changes in the trawl survey methods, a version of this grid-patterned survey continues through the present day, making it one of the oldest bottom-trawlsurveys in U.S. waters. Unfortunately, many of the specific findings made during these early efforts have been lost to the research community. Here, we report on the methods,results, and significance of these early surveys, which were collated from published reports and the unpublished original data sheets so that researchers might beginincorporating this information into stock assessments, ecosystem trend analyses, and perhaps even revise the baseline population distribution and abundance estimates.
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