Kamchatka crab or Alaskan king crab, is a species of king crab native to the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The red king crab is the largest species of king crab. The red king crab is native to the Alaskan king crab co Sea, North Pacific Ocean, around the Kamchatka Peninsula and neighboring Alaskan waters. It is the most coveted of the commercially sold king crab species, and it is the most expensive per unit weight.
It is most commonly caught in the Bering Sea and Norton Sound, Alaska, and is particularly difficult to catch, but is nonetheless one of the most preferred crabs for consumption. Red king crabs are experiencing a steady decline in numbers in their native far east coastal waters for unclear reasons, though several theories for the precipitous drop in the crab population have been proposed, including overfishing, warmer waters, and increased fish predation. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union transported red king crabs from the North Pacific Ocean to the Murmansk Fjord. They did not survive transport overland, so a batch was flown in, which survived, was released, and bred and spread in the wild.
It was first found in Norway in 1977. In the Barents Sea, it is an invasive species and its population is increasing tremendously. This is causing great concern to local environmentalists and local fishermen, as the crab eats everything it comes across and is spreading very rapidly, eating most seabed life and “creating a desert”. By the mid 1990s, the king crabs reached North Cape. 2013 that they have reached Sørøya and are breeding there.
A few have been caught as far south as Tromsø. A report on 8 June 2009 said that a red king crab had been caught off Skogsvåg at Sotra south of Bergen in south Norway. Despite these concerns, the species is protected by diplomatic accords between Norway and Russia as part of a fisheries agreement between Norway and Russia about the Barents Sea, and a bilateral fishing commission decides how to manage the stocks and imposes fishing quotas. West of the North Cape on Norway’s northern tip, Norway manages its crab population itself. In the Norwegian Sea, some evidence indicates that the red king crabs eat the egg masses of the capelin, which is an important prey for the cod. In January 2022 fishermen in the United Kingdom started catching King crabs. The red king crab has a wide range of tolerance to temperature, but it affects their growth.