Abstract
Recently snow crab resources in the western Japan Sea have gradually gained a certain degree of recovery through measures such as limiting catches and establishing protective reefs. Fisheries Agency of Japan carried out maintenance of protective developmental reefs newly from 2007 in future in an offshore sea area by the direct control of the country to plan more resources recovery. Current snow crab protective developmental reefs have been aiming at the protection effect by the fishing operation prevention mainly. The effect of propagation that protective reefs possess will be confirmed in the future, and more efficient, more effective maintenance is requested.
For that purpose, this report summarizes the actual effects of a snow crab protective developmental reef created at a depth of 290 meters in the Tajima-Oki Sea Area of Hyogo Prefecture over 1994 to 1996, in terms of (1) a habitat environment study, (2) a study of catch quantity, and (3) a visibility study using ROV. It also involves an examination of the functions and effects of protective developmental reefs.
