Based on logbook records the sand crab commercial pot fishery in Moreton Bay is worth in the vicinity of $2 million wholesale annually. Sand crabs are also taken as an incidental by-catch by otter trawlers and in addition Moreton Bay supports a substantial recreational fishery.

Sand crabs are caught throughout the year but fishing effort is greatest from October to June. Peak catches in the pot fishery occur during March and April when daily catch rates may exceed 3 legal males per pot. Gravid females are present throughout the year but the highest proportion of egg bearing females is found in the population during August and September. Peaks in mating activity occur in autumn and spring with recruitment of juvenile crabs commencing in November. The parasitic barnacle Sacculina granifera infects 3% of all sand crabs in Moreton Bay and a previously unreported microsporidian parasite is found in 0.7% of the population.

Tagging studies show that fishing effort and mortality of sand crabs is highly variable throughout the Bay. Recapture rates for different areas vary from 1% to 65% with an overall return rate of 14%. The pattern of tag returns does not indicate any ordered directional movement of crabs either into or out of the Bay.

Male and female sand crabs exhibit differences in preferred habitat. Large males are generally more abundant in deeper water, whereas females predominate in shallower water, particularly on the top of sand banks.

Management recommendations arising from the project work include a change in the method of sand crab measurement to the width at the base of the antero-lateral spines, lowering of the existing size limit, the introduction of a bag 1 limit for recreational fishermen and an abolition of the prohibition on taking females provided that suitable management conditions can be maintained.

The papers published in this book were all presented at the Symposium "Making the Most of the Catch..." held in Brisbane, Australia, 25-27 July 1996.

The contributors came from many countries and from many different institutions. They were selected in an endeavour to present a broad spectrum of information at a range of levels such that there would be topics of vital interest to each of the participants, whether they were involved in research, industry or regulation. The topics also represent many of the issues which are of current and future concern to the Australian industry, whose export markets are mostly in Asia, particularly Japan. Domestic issues were not neglected and presentations concerned aquaculture as well as the capture fisheries.

This Symposium was organised deliberately to immediately precede the Second World Fisheries Congress which was being held in Brisbane to cover regulation, biology, stock assessment and political issues in fisheries. In view of the fact that the world's fishery resources are fully exploited, the theme of "Making the Most of the Catch..." was considered to be highly appropriate to the current situation.

The funding investment in, and conduct of, research and how best to ensure transfer of results and information, and to effect improvements in communication and training added to the theme. The influence that different practices in feeding, harvesting and transportation may have on live and aquacultured species and how these practices can be controlled to result in a better product broadened the theme. The latest in safety issues, the challenges of inspection, HACCP, better techniques for the development of new products and the influence of process variables extended matters. A notable inclusion was in the example of the integration of catch data with complex process information thus creating a nexus of pre- and post-catch information to optimise yields and to plan fishing operations, a concept not yet employed, and probably unheard of, in fisheries management.

The Symposium was solely organised through the Centre for Food Technology, a unit of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries which also organised an international seafood conference in 1991. However, apart from a conference organised by FAQ and held in Melbourne in 1984, "Making the Most of the Catch..." is the first international symposium of Australian origin in the field of seafood technology from which written papers have been submitted and published as a proceedings. The Symposium attracted many of the workers from the major institutions around Australia who have involvement in some aspect of seafood research. Probably more important was the fact that it was attended by many scientists from overseas. That result and these proceedings amount to an injection of intellectual capital into the Australian scene facilitating the forging of personal links between scientists working on a similar problem in different situations. It is not just the exchange of knowledge and the continuing value of the material in the written proceedings, but, it is these ongoing personal links from which new and important contacts are made which provide overwhelming justification for meetings such as this.