Understanding the behavior of snow crab in response to escape gaps is important as it may impact escape success, including the number of attempts, as well as time taken to escape successfully. The study filmed movements of snow crabs through different sized and shaped escape gaps in a laboratory setting and compared movement patterns with those of pot netting mesh. The results showed that escape success strongly depends on crab orientation, the time required to escape a trap can be reduced when using escape gaps, and escape gap design strongly influences size selectivity. In addition, escape probability decreases with crab size. Specifically, circular gaps can retain target-sized crabs while releasing undersized crabs, while elongated or wide gaps increase the risk that target-sized crabs escape. Additionally, side-by-side gaps r mesh can cause limb entanglement and delayed escape.