NATURE

Sea, land, river

ECONOMY

Regional

PLACE

Books+

PEOPLES

Community

HOME

Most those at Fish Hall interested in Rockfish	We’re OK it’s down south that is in trouble
	That was the majority opinion among the fishers present

	Max age	50% mature	100% mature		WA
Yelloweye rockfish Sebastes ruberrimus	118 years	BC 22 years ♂; 19 ♀	???		C	“overfished” in US
Quillback: S maliger	95	♀at11 years	♀at 22 years (15”)	Sum	C	Almost overfished
Copper - S caurinus	50	BC 6 years ♂; 7 ♀	????	Sum	C	DNA colonization
China S nebulosus	79		All by 6 years	Sum	C
Tiger -S nigrocinctus	116	????	?????		C	“territorial”?
Black S melanops	About 50	AK “6-8 years”	???	Sum	C	“midwater” fast grower

Reduction???

While fishers claimed they had taken a voluntary reduction in 2002 the stats seem to say that ‘reduction’ an illusion

Because Rockfish so long lived; sedentary and reproductive so late in life --- they will be hard to manage as a sustainable fishery

Perhaps putting large areas off limits will seed the fishery – thus the concept of 20% ‘habitat’ into RCAs (Rockfish Conservation areas)

See DFO web page for intro

Required Reading

and check out the Love lab for a hint of how much ‘fun’ rockfish are

Longer term there has been a boom that is not sustainable

Hence the hope that RCAs will allow the fishery to survive

See the proposed areas map here and the main October consultation web site here

Stenhouse Shoal (7) has already been established as RPA – while 8 & 6 are proposals --- note how little of Stenhouse is actual rockfish habitat (the green area)

Note area “6” will be hard to monitor as only small part of much larger habitat area and some of the best places are just outside the reserve

Comment on area 7 from here and for area 8 from here. Below is a DFO map of CPUE for quillback in the 1999 Hook & Line fishery—note none of the best sites are to be ‘conserved’ (Quillback example)

While 5 looks valuable – 4 has minimal habitat

Lisa from Stock Assessment used H&L logbook data to show where catch was over past 8 years – this RCA looks useless

	Will it work?
	The literature supports the idea of rockfish reserves to ‘seed’ fished areas --- but one may doubt if the areas chosen can produce the desired results – many appear to have been chosen because of so little fishery value ---- But as Gary Logan said – in some ways these are ‘straw men’ --- meant as a starting point and perhaps to be replaced by the consultation

The strategy encompasses the following four principles

• Catch Monitoring
• Harvest Reduction
• Stock Assessment
• Establishment of Rockfish Conservation Areas

Submersibles??	Submarine and standardized fishing
	The preferred method for stock assessment among the fishers present was something like halibut where year in year out standardized Test fishery done – and that seemed how areas were to be ‘indexed’ --- More novel was the use of submarine vehicles to actually count the rockfish. This was scoffed at by many – but SE AK has long long history this technique and should be copied

US data—note how long some species take to recover while others only a few years

Species	Year Declared	Percent of B0	Recovery Time (yr) Overfished if Fishing Mortality=0
Bocaccio rockfish (Sebastes paucispinus)	1999	7.4	18
Canary rockfish (S. pinniger)	2000	8	54
Cowcod rockfish (S. levis)	2000	7	59
Darkblotched rockfish (S. crameri)	2000	14	11
Pacific Ocean perch (S. alutus)	1999	21.7	8
Widow rockfish (S. entomelas)	2001	23.6	20
Yelloweye rockfish (S. ruberrimus)	2002	24	24
Lingcod (Ophiodon elongates)	1999	15–17	1–2
Pacific hake (Merluccius productus)	2002	24	1

Created by LG on Oct/12/2004

Last updated on Wednesday, October 13, 2004

NATURE

ECONOMY

PLACE

PEOPLES

We’re OK it’s down south that is in trouble

Reduction???

Submarine and standardized fishing