Abstract
Blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, support valuable commercial fisheries throughout much of their range, including the Gulf of Mexico. Over the last five years (2015–2019), Gulf-wide annual commercial landings averaged 51 million pounds for an annual dockside value of over $70 million. Despite active management on the state level, many states have seen declines in blue crab harvest and fishery independent estimates of abundance, potentially indicative of declines in spawning stock abundance, larval abundance, postlarval recruitment, or juvenile survival. Blue crab management and stock assessment efforts in the Gulf of Mexico have typically lagged behind the primary crab-harvesting states of the Atlantic Coast due to a lack of fishery independent data on spawning stock abundance and a lack of understanding of blue crab life history, connectivity, and movements within and among Gulf Coast estuaries. We are addressing this data gap by conducting a 2-year assessment of blue crab abundance, reproductive output, migratory movements, and exploitation rates in the vicinity of the Mississippi barrier islands, a valuable spawning area for blue crabs in the northcentral Gulf of Mexico. Blue crabs are sampled monthly at Horn and Cat Islands using traps and bimonthly using trawls. Egg samples are collected from ovigerous crabs for assessment of fecundity and egg quality. Additionally, 2400 mature female blue crabs will be tagged and released to examine movement patterns and assess exploitation rates. The proposed work will directly benefit Mississippi and the surrounding states by providing data that can be directly incorporated into future blue crab stock assessments and management decisions, thus improving management of this valuable fishery.
