Operating a crab fishery
In Queensland, commercial crab fishers predominantly operate in 3 different fisheries:
The fishery is managed through:
- legislation
- licence requirements
- working groups
- harvest strategies
- gear restrictions
- quota requirements.
Fishery symbols
- C1: Other than spanner crab
- C2: Spanner crabs (managed area A)
- C3: Spanner crabs (managed area B)
Operating areas
Mud crabs and blue swimmer crabs (C1):
- EC1: East coast mud crab
- GC1: Gulf of Carpentaria mud crab
- BC1: Blue swimmer crab (all of Queensland).
Spanner crabs (C2 and C3):
- C2: Managed area A
- C3: Managed area B.
Management
Quota
The crab fishery is a quota-managed fishery:
- total allowable catch (TAC) quota for each management region:
- EC1 – east coast mud crab
- GC1 – Gulf of Carpentaria mud crab
- BC1 – blue swimmer crab (all of Queensland)
- Spanner crabs Managed area A (C2)
- Spanner crabs Managed area B (C3)
- individual transferable quotas (ITQs).