Portunus pelagicus is distributed throughout the coastal waters of the tropical regions of the western Indian Ocean and the Eastern Pacific (Kailola et al. 1993); they are adapted to a life in warmer waters, and occurs in a wide range of algal and seagrass habitats and on both sandy and muddy substrata, from the intertidal zone to at least fifty metres of depth. In Australia, is distributed from Cape Naturaliste in Western Australia north to the Northern Territory, across Queensland, down the east coast and to the New South Wales – Victoria border. They are also found in the warmer waters of the South Australian gulfs. While most chapters in the Status of key Australian fish stocks reports consider a single fishery to be a management unit, the term ‘management unit’ in this chapter can also describe a compilation of multiple fisheries (Chaplin and Sezmis 2008).

In Western Australia, stock delineation of Blue Swimmer Crab is unknown; for this state, reporting of stock status is therefore at the management unit level. There are three major management units off the Western Australian coast between Cape Naturaliste and Nickol Bay (Shark Bay, Cockburn Sound and Peel–Harvey Estuary). There are other two other Western Australian management units and each comprise several minor fisheries (Johnston et al. 2014ab).

This resource is mainly collected by artisanal traps, trawls, beach seines, cylindrical wire traps, folding traps, pots, hop nets, drop nets and crab gill nets. The total catch reported for this species to FAO for 1999 was 133 938 t.