November 2002 Pacific Ocean Per

• Main Authors: Chapter Pacific Ocean, Paul D. Spencer, James N. Ianelli
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Bering Sea; Pacific; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.12.6852; http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/refm/docs/2002/BSpop.pdf

ntrated on S. alutus; relatively little biological or assessment information is available for the other rockfish species. This chapter discusses strictly Pacific ocean perch; the assessment of other red rockfish is addressed in another chapter. Since 2001, POP in the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands area have been assessed and managed as a single stock. Motivations for this change includes the paucity of data in the EBS upon which to base an age-structured assessment, and uncertainty that the EBS POP represent a discrete stock (Spencer and Ianelli 2001). FISHERY Pacific ocean perch were highly sought by Japanese and Soviet fisheries and supported a major trawl fishery throughout the 1960s. Catches in the eastern Bering Sea peaked at 47,000 (metric tons, t) in 1961; the peak catch in the Aleutian Islands region occurred in 1965 at 109,100 t. Apparently, these stocks were not productive enough to support such large removals. Catches continued to decline throughout the 1960s and 1970s, reac