Haddock on the Porcupine Bank, September 1944

• Published in: Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
• Main Author: Hickling, C. F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1946
• Subjects: Aquatic Science; Porcupine Bank; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025315400012224; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0025315400012224

1. It is suggested that the population of haddock (Gadus aeglefinus L.) on the Porcupine Bank is largely a self-contained stock. 2. This stock had complete immunity from trawling from December 1940, to September 1944. 3. In 1939 and 1940 there was an abundance of small haddock in this stock, due to the good brood of 1938. In 1944, this brood was still very abundant, and was then joined by the good brood of 1942. 4. These two good broods, growing up immune from fishing mortality, caused the Porcupine Bank to carry, in 1944, the densest stock of haddock ever experienced there. 5. The average number of sclerites in the first zone of the scales of these fish is the highest recorded in any region. It is still high in the second zone, but in the later zones falls below that found in the scales of haddock from other regions. 6. The growth rate was faster, in the first four years of life, than even that of Iceland and Faroe haddock, but in the later years it fell behind these, though still superior to the growth rate of the North Sea haddock. 7. The expectation that this greatly increased stock of haddock, due to the war-time cessation of fishing, would show a slowing in its rate of growth, due to intensified competition for the available food, is not supported by the facts.