Catch-effort, and catch-sampling data along with the results of a tagging study are used to estimate the size of the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, population in the Neuse River, North Carolina, during 1958. At the beginning of July, estimates of the crab population, determined by three methods, were 716,000, 703,000, and 722,000 pounds, respectively. Catch, recruitment, and emigration of mature female crabs from the river affected abundance, whereas natural mortality and predation upon crabs were considered insignificant. Of the 2.1 million pounds of crabs estimated as being available to the fishery during 1958, 1.7 million pounds were caught.
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Kenneth J. Fischler (1965) studied this question.