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Quotas for crab catches have been slashed by 20 percent for the year 2008 and the catches are allowed for scientific purposes only, a spokesman for Goskomrybolovstvo, or Russian Fishing Committee, Alexander Savelyev said Wednesday.

According to Goskomrybolovstvo’s fishing quotas, allowable quotas for crab stand at 51,761 metric tons, a 20-percent decrease compared to 61, 539 tons in 2007, Savelyev said. Catches of most crab species are allowed only for scientific purposes according to the results of the state ecological expertise, he added.

In the fishing territories near the Kuriles and Sakhalin, catches of two types of crab – triangle tanner crab and red crab - are allowed for commercial fishing.

The restriction on crab catches is caused by the necessity to restore the crab population exhausted by poaching.

In 2006 the quotas for crab were set at 60,000 tons but the actual catches made were 150,000 tons with most of the catch being exported to Japan, South Korea, China and the United States.

Cutting crab quotas, Goskomrybolovstvo has increased pollock quotas for Sakhalin and Kuriles. The total allowable catches for all kinds of fish in this region are set at 795,000 tons. Humpback salmon catches are allowed at 123,000 tons and chum salmon, or keta, at 20,000 tons.