2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment of Main Hawaiian Islands Kona Crab

The Kona crab, Ranina ranina (Linnaeus, 1767), is a brachyuran crustacean in the Raninidae family. The species is fairly cosmopolitan throughout the tropical and sub-tropical Indo-Pacific region. Kona crabs are commonly referred to as spanner crabs (Australia) and the species is also known as the red frog crab, frog crab, papa’i kua loa, and krab ziraf. The southeast Queensland spanner crab fishery is the largest known fishery for the species, landing in excess of 1500 metric tons in annual catch records since the mid-1990s (Dichmont and Brown, 2010). Directed fisheries for the species also exist in Western Australia, New South Wales (Australia), the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, Mauritius, Reunion, and the Seychelles archipelago (Boulle, 1995; Cook, 1987; Krajangdara and Watanabe, 2005; Tahil, 1983). This benchmark assessment implements fishery data and biological information collected in the Main Hawaiian Islands (defined in Yau (2018); Fig. 1), with the exception of life history information borrowed from Australia to estimate natural mortality (explained in Section 1.1 Biology and Life History).