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Alaskan king crab fishing is carried out during the fall months in the waters off the coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The commercial harvest is performed during a very short season, and the catch is shipped worldwide. Large numbers of king crab are also caught in Russian and international waters. In 1980, at the peak of the king crab industry, Alaskan fisheries produced up to of crab. However, by 1983, the total size of the catch had dropped by up to 90% in some places.〔(Commercial Fisheries ) from Alaska Department of Fish and Game〕 Several theories for the precipitous drop in the crab population have been proposed, including overfishing, warmer waters, and increased fish predation. As a result the current season is very short and in the 2010 season only of red king crab were landed.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=National Marine Fisheries Landing Data )〕 Alaskan crab fishing is very dangerous, and the fatality rate among the fishermen is about 80 times the fatality rate of the average worker. It is suggested that, on average, one crab fisherman dies weekly during the seasons.〔 Christie, Les: (America’s most dangerous jobs ), Retrieved on April 28, 2007〕 == Types of commercially valuable king crab == In Alaska, three species of king crab are caught commercially: the red king crab (''Paralithodes camtschaticus'', found in Bristol Bay, Norton Sound, and the Kodiak Archipelago), blue king crab (''Paralithodes platypus'', St. Matthew Island and the Pribilof Islands), and golden king crab (''Lithodes aequispinus'', Aleutian Islands). The red king crab is the most prized of the three for its meat. A fourth variety of king crab, the scarlet king crab (''Lithodes couesi''), is too small and rare to be commercially viable, even though its meat is considered sweet and tasty.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=King Crab 101 )〕 Specific size requirements must be met: only certain types of king crab are legal at different times of the year and only males can be kept. == Fishing season == The most popular crab-fishing months occur between October and January. The allocated time for a season continued to shrink – at one point a red crab season was only four days long. After 2005, each boat was given a quota based on their catch from previous years and how many crabs are available to catch. The fleet went from 251 boats down to 89. Currently the seasons last from two to four weeks.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Discovery Channel's ''Deadliest Catch'' )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alaskan king crab fishing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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