Characteristics of the Kona crab fishery in the main Hawaiian Islands

The catch, catch rate, and fishing effort for Kona crab in the main Hawaiian Islands were investigated to determine the need for conducting a stock assessment. The current annual catch limit (ACL) for Kona crab in the main Hawaiian Islands is 30,802 lb based on results from the latest stock assessment (Kapur et al., 2019). In the years since the assessment, the annual commercial catch was always less than 6,000 lb, well below the ACL.