| The velvet swimming crab Necora puber, commonly found on the French coast was an important resource for inshore fishermen of the Mor-Braz sea in Southern Brittany before the production collapsed in 1985. Although there are still many uncertainties as to the reasons for this, we note that the collapse took place after a significant ecological imbalance which locally caused massive mortality of many marine organisms in 1982. Without being obviously linked to the former point, mortality due to pathological causes was observed in velvet swimming crabs. Seeing the lack of general knowledge about these crabs, this study was designed to acquire data about its fishery and its biology. The first part focused on fleet, fishing effort and yield trends in the... |
