Blue Swimming Crabs :: Fishermen, Malaysia, Bardawil Lagoon

Blue swimming crabs are an important source of income for fishermen in the Malaysia, also known as ‘ketam bunga’ or ‘ketam renjong’ in the name of the local. The high price and increased demands in among community will cause the over-exploitation in production of blue swimming crabs. In 2003, total landings for P. pelagicus were approximately 175,000 tons and decrease to 165,000 tons in 2004 (FAO Fish Stat, 2009). This decline from over-exploitation has an impact in some Asian countries (Ikhwanuddin et al., 2005). In Malaysia, statistics from Department of Fisheries (DOF) shows that the landings of P. pelagicus is 3514 tons in 2007 and increase to 4427 tonnes in 2008 but the landings is decrease in 2009 with 3057 tones. These declines total the crabs fishing at territorial water in Malaysia as an early marker of deficiency will the crabs in the future because of the increasing the catch and the damage of coastal environments, the amount of P. pelagicus is ra pidly decreased. However, P. pelagicus cultured are important from the beginning of the last decade because of high demand for live crabs and crabs products in the export market. Due to their fast growth rates to market size (Josileen and Menon, 2005) and relative ease of hatchery production (Walker, 2006), the aquaculture interest of this species is growing. Blue swimming crabs are of high value and quality, a profitable export markets in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan by Australian producers (Stevens, 1997) Now day, P. pelagicus are cultured for the production of the lucrative soft-shell crab market on recirculation and lined pond systems in Australia (O'Neill, 2003 and Walker, 2006). Blue Swimming crabs are not only popular in Malaysia but another country a lot of crabs caught along the Coast of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (Chande and Mgaya, 2004), Bardawil Lagoon of Northern Sinai in Egypt (Abdel Razak et al., 2006), Park Bay and the Gulf of Mannar in India, the West Coast of South Australia in Australia (Dixon et al., 2008) and at Southern Trang Province of Thailand (Sawusdee and Songrak, 2009). An estimate of blue swimming crabs caught in the waters around southern Australia from 2007 to 2008 was 669 tonnes valued at $ 5,740,000 by Knight and Tsolos (2009). Blue swimming crab landings in India increased from 20,000 to 48,380 tons at 30 percent for years 1977 to 2005 (Samuel et al.