Northwest Fisheries Consortium Consortium home Ships Products English general information Bottom fish species Kamchatka crab Kamchatka crab Kamchatka crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) is one of the largest Far Eastern crabs. For the Barents Sea, the Kamchatka crab, or the red king crab (Red King Crab), as the Americans call it, is an introduced species, that is, it was specially brought from the Far East by scientists in the 1960s and artificially introduced into the Barents Sea, after which the invader adapted to new conditions and began to multiply intensively. The Kamchatka crab fishery in the Barents Sea is carried out by two countries, Russia and Norway. Norway started commercial fishing in 2002, Russia in 2004. Crab fishing is carried out using special traps in ecologically clean areas of the Barents Sea in the autumn-winter period. Only adult male crab can be caught. Meat (white), located in the legs, claws and at the place where the legs join the shell (carapace), as well as caviar are used for food.

Northwest Fisheries Consortium Consortium home Ships Products English general information Crab catchers Crackers Transport ships general information The Consortium's fleet consists of fishing and transport vessels. Fishing vessels of the Consortium are divided into vessels for fishing crab and vessels for fishing. For fishing, stern trawling vessels of the SRTMk type are used (medium fishing stern freezer trawler), as well as foreign-built vessels. Such vessels can catch bottom fish species (such as cod, haddock) with bottom trawls in the North-East Atlantic, in the Barents and Norwegian Seas. There are factories on board for processing the catch, which produce finished products. Then the products are reloaded at sea to transport vessels for further delivery to the port or delivered to the port directly by fishing vessels. For crab fishing, medium-tonnage trawlers are used, completely re-equipped for specialized crab fishing with crab traps. Crab fishing vessels are hunting for Kamchatka (king) crab in the Barents Sea. Finished products are produced on board crab fishing vessels, then they are loaded onto transport vessels at sea for delivery to the port or delivered and unloaded at the port by crab fishing vessels.