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Reconstruction of Stock History and Development of Rehabilitation Strategies for Pacific Ocean Perch in Queen Charlotte Sound, Canada
Author(s) -
Archibald Chris P.,
Fournier David,
Leaman Bruce M.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
north american journal of fisheries management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1548-8675
pISSN - 0275-5947
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8659(1983)3<283:roshad>2.0.co;2
Subject(s) - perch , queen (butterfly) , sound (geography) , fishery , oceanography , stock (firearms) , geography , biology , ecology , geology , archaeology , fish <actinopterygii> , hymenoptera
Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) have undergone considerable over‐exploitation in Queen Charlotte Sound, British Columbia, largely as a result of excessive removals by foreign fleets in the 1965‐1974 period. A new catch‐at‐age model is used to reconstruct the history of this stock through simultaneous analysis for all cohorts present in the time series of catch data. The reconstruction extends from 1963‐1977 and estimates that intensive fishing pressure reduced the stock from an initial size of 82,000 t to only 13,000 t by 1977. Numbers of fish at each age are estimated for the period of the data, together with estimates of fishing mortality. The reconstructed stock status and the stochastic stock‐recruit relation estimated by this analysis are used as inputs for a model to simulate stock behaviour over 30‐year periods, under various exploitation strategies. Results indicate that rehabilitation will be achieved only at fishing intensities about one‐third of the terminal 1977 fishing mortality (F = 0.06). The stochastic nature of recruitment to this stock indicates up to a 50% probability of further stock declines at levels of fishing mortality as low as one‐half the 1977 value (F = 0.1).