North Pacific hake
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| North Pacific hake | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||||
| Merluccius productus (Ayres, 1855) |
The North Pacific hake, Pacific hake, or Pacific whiting, Merluccius productus, is a merluccid hake of the genus Merluccius, found in the north east Pacific Ocean from northern Vancouver Island to the northern part of the Gulf of California.
Contents |
[edit] Description
Its length is about 3 ft (90 cm) and they live up to 15 years. Coloration is metallic silver-gray with black speckling and pure silvery white on the belly. North Pacific hake have two dorsal fins and a truncate caudal fin. Their pectoral fin tips usually reach to or beyond the origin of anal fin. The caudal fin is always concave.
[edit] Reproduction
The North Pacific hake spawns from January to June. North Pacific hake may spawn more than once per season, so absolute fecundity is difficult to determine. Historically, inshore female Pacific hake matured at 15 inches (37 cm) and 4 to 5 years of age. Currently, length at 50% maturity for females in the Port Susan North Pacific hake population is approximately 8.5 inches (21.5 cm), compared to 11.7 inches (29.8 cm) in the 1980s. Females mature at 3 to 4 years of age and 13.4 to 15.75 inches (34-40 cm) and nearly all males are mature by age 3 and as small as 11 inches (28 cm).
[edit] Ecology
They occur from the surface to depths of 1,000 meters (3300 feet). North Pacific hake are nocturnal feeders that undergo diel vertical migrations off the bottom in order to feed on a variety of fishes and invertebrates. Its diet includes shrimp, plankton and smaller fishes. They are an important prey item for sea lions, small cetaceans, and dogfish sharks.
There are three recognized stocks of Pacific hake: a highly migratory offshore (or coastal) stock that ranges from southern California to Queen Charlotte Sound, a central-south Puget Sound stock, and a Strait of Georgia (SOG) stock. The offshore North Pacific hake stock spawned off south-central California to Baja California in the winter months of January and February during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (Methot and Dorn 1995, McFarlane et al. 2000). In spring and summer adults migrated northward to feed to as far as central Vancouver Island (and as far as Queen Charlotte Sound in some years). In the fall, adults migrated southward toward spawning grounds. Since the early 1990s a percentage of the offshore stock has remained off the west coast of Canada year round and some Pacific hake have been observed spawning off the west coast of Vancouver Island (McFarlane et al. 2000). Resident Pacific hake in Puget Sound spawn in Port Susan and Dabob Bay from February through April. The SOG resident stock aggregates to spawn in the deep basins of the south-central Strait of Georgia where peak spawning occurs from March to May.
[edit] Fisheries
The North Pacific hake commercial fishery is the largest off the West Coast of the United States and British Columbia. North Pacific hake is primarily made into surimi, a minced fish product used to make imitation crab and other products. More recently, there has been growth in the production of hake fillets.
The fishery developed in the 1960s with the arrival of distant water fleets from the former Soviet Union and eastern European nations. In the 1980s the fishery in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (i.e., 200 nautical miles (370 km) seaward of state waters) evolved into a joint venture operation between foreign at-sea processing vessels and U.S. catcher vessels. By the 1990s, the fishery had developed into a domestic fishery with three distinct sectors:
- Catcher/Processors that harvest and process at sea (see Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative)
- Motherships that take deliveries from catcher vessels and process at-sea
- Shoreside processors that take deliveries from catcher vessels.
U.S. coastal treaty tribes in Washington comprise a fourth sector of the North Pacific hake fishery. Per an agreement with the U.S. government, coastal treaty Tribes receive a specific annual allocation of whiting (see Midwater Trawlers Cooperative v. U.S. Dept of Commerce, 2004). Their allocation is based on the level of allowable harvest, which varies year-to-year. For example, in 2007 the U.S. harvest level is 242,591 mt; of this amount the Makah Tribe was allocated 32,500 mt. The Quileute Tribe is also eligible for an allocation, but have not been active in the fishery in recent years.
Since 2000, annual catch in the non-tribal hake fishery has averaged about 160,000 mt per year.
The Pacific whiting fishery in U.S. and Canadian waters is governed by the Pacific Hake Agreement. The Hake Agreement became law on January 12, 2007 when President Bush signed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006. The U.S. and Canada are currently implementing provisions of the Hake Agreement, including appointments to various technical, management, and advisory committees. During the implementation phase, the whiting fishery is being managed in accordance with provisions in the Agreement, most notably the harvest sharing framework that allocates 73.88% of the annual harvest to U.S. fisheries and 26.12% to Canadian fisheries.
In the U.S., the whiting fishery is managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), specifically the NMFS-Northwest Region. The shoreside sector of the fishery is managed cooperatively between NMFS and state fishery management agencies; information about the shoreside fishery is available from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife-Shoreside Hake Observer Program.
Each year, the at-sea fishery (comprised of catcher/processor and mothership sectors) starts on May 15th. The primary shoreside fishery opens June 15th.
[edit] Conservation
Overharvest is the main threat to North Pacific hake. The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service received a petition to list the North Pacific hake under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The petition was denied on 24 November 2000 (65 FR 70514) but concerns and uncertainties remained. During the review for ESA listing, The Georgia Basin Distinct Population Segment was identified to include both the Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia stocks. The Georgia Basin DPS of the North Pacific hake (called Pacific hake by NMFS) was made a U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern. Species of Concern are those species about which the U.S. Government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
The expanding range of the Humboldt squid is also a cause for concern. Humboldt squid are voracious predators of hake and can substantially reduce their populations.[1]
The recreational fishery for Puget Sound North Pacific hake is closed and there has been no directed commercial fishery on Puget Sound Pacific hake since 1991.
[edit] References
- "Merluccius productus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. April 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
McFarlane, G.A., J.R. King and R.J. Beamish. 2000. Have there been recent changes in climate? Ask the fish. Progr. Oceanogr. 47:147-169.
Methot, R.D. and M.W. Dorn. 1995. Biology and fisheries of North Pacific hake (Merluccius productus). In J. Alheit and T. J. Pitcher (eds.), Hake: Biology, fisheries and markets, p. 389-414. Chapman & Hall, London.
- ^ Invasive range expansion by the Humboldt squid. Louis D. Zeidberg and Bruce H. Robison, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 2007.
