Crab fishery
The following profile provides the socioeconomic context of the crab fishery in British Columbia. It includes an overview of the commercial and recreational sectors. This overview is based on data collected from DFO commercial harvest logbooks and sale slips, public reports, and DFO surveys on harvest prices and recreational fisheries. The commercial harvest data that informed this work can be downloaded here.
Long text version
2024 Economic profile of the crab fishery
Commercial fisheries overview
The crab fishery is managed by protecting the reproductive potential of the stock primarily through restrictions on size, sex, and season. The crab fishery is a limited entry, competitive fishery with an area reselection process that occurs every three years to provide economic flexibility. There are effort and fishing location controls in all crab management areas; additional measures vary by area.
All values are from 2024 compared to 2023 in 2024-dollars by calendar year, unless otherwise specified.
Key metrics for the crab fishery, all values are from 2024 and in 2024 dollars:
- Landed value ($85M), decreased by 28% since 2023
- Wholesale value ($178M), decreased by 25% since 2023
- Active vessels (209), decreased by 1% since 2023
- Licence Eligibilities (220, no change since 2023), 35 are communal commercial licences. Licence eligibilities represents the number of issued licences. Some licences are not issued to mitigate for the 5N court decision.
- Licence value ($1.5M in 2023), no change since 2022.
2024 data are considered preliminary and subject to change.
Annual wild crab landings (in kilograms) and value (in 2024 dollars)
Area A crab landed kilograms
- 2014 - 1.4M KG
- 2015 - 1.3M KG
- 2016 - 792K KG
- 2017 - 999K KG
- 2018 - 2.0M KG
- 2019 - 5.6M KG
- 2020 – 7.0M KG
- 2021 - 7.6M KG
- 2022 - 6.6M KG
- 2023 - 4.9M KG
- 2024 - 1.9M KG
Area B-J crab landed kilograms
- 2014 - 2.4M KG
- 2015 - 2.9M KG
- 2016 - 2.6M KG
- 2017 - 2.8M KG
- 2018 - 2.8M KG
- 2019 - 2.8M KG
- 2020 - 2.6M KG
- 2021 - 2.8M KG
- 2022 - 2.3M KG
- 2023 - 2.2M KG
- 2024 - 2.6M KG
Total landed value (2024$)
- 2014 - $60M
- 2015 - $70M
- 2016 - $57M
- 2017 - $59M
- 2018 - $75M
- 2019 - $114M
- 2020 - $116M
- 2021 - $182M
- 2022 - $122M
- 2023 - $117M
- 2024 - $85M
Commercial fishery Pacific crab – 2024 landed weight map
- Area A: 1.9 million kilograms in total volume
- Areas B-J: 2.6 million kilograms in total volume
Income diversification of licence holders in active fisheries (2024)
In 2024, 93% of revenues for crab licence holders came from crab fishing, with the rest coming from prawn and shrimp trap (6%), and halibut (1%).
Exports: The demand for crab is mainly in overseas markets in China (89%), followed by the United States (8%). Percentages are of total volume.
$93M in value-added processing was generated by 64 processing and wholesaling companies located coastwide in 2024.
The Pacific crab fishery directly contributes $45M (GDP) to the provincial economy, with a direct employment and income contribution of 588 and $29M, respectively.
The tidal water recreational fishing survey data is not available for 2024. Please see the 2023 infographic for recreational values:
Data
The commercial data and the recreational data that informed this work can be downloaded here.
- Date modified: