Understanding environmental and fisheries factors causing fluctuations in mud crab and blue swimmer crab fisheries in northern Australia to inform harvest strategies

Giant Mud Crabs support valuable commercial, recreational and indigenous fisheries in northern Australia. This project aimed to understand the relationship between environmental factors and harvests of crabs in the Gulf of Carpentaria (GoC), northern Australia. This was in response to concerns re consistent declines in harvests of GoC Giant Mud Crab (Scylla serrata). The harvest of Giant Mud Crabs is known to fluctuate in response to environmental/climate conditions. This project demonstrated that poor harvests of Giant Mud Crabs in the GoC were likely driven by a combination of low rainfall and or river flows, high temperatures and sea level variations.