1Hokkaido National Fisheries Research Institute, Fisheries Research Agency, Kushiro, Hokkaido 085-0802, 2Japan Sea National Fisheries Research Institute, Fisheries Research Agency, Niigata 951-8121, Japan, 3National Research Institute of Fisheries Engineering, Fisheries Research Agency, Hasaki, Ibaraki 314-0421, Japan
Bottom trawl surveys were conducted over four consecutive summer seasons, 1997~2000, to collect the snow crab Chionoecetes opilio in the southwestern area of the Sea of Okhotsk. Almost all snow crabs were collected from depths of 100~300 m, and especially high densities at the depth range of 150~200 m. Few individuals occurred deeper than 300 m deep. Males and females were larger with greater depths. The range of bottom temperature at the stations where the snow crabs were collected was between −0.96 and 6.00°C, and the temperature of stations where more than 500 individuals/km2 were estimated was between −0.96 and 5.77°C. The size at which 50 percent of individuals had finished the terminal molt was estimated at 106.0 mm and 63.4 mm in carapace width for males and females, respectively.