A Report of the SARC 42 Assessment Working Group

• Main Authors: National Marine, Fisheries Service
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iceland; Newfoundland; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.173.981; http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/publications/crd/crd0609/pdfs/ctxt.pdf

The northern shortfin squid, Illex illecebosus, inhabits the continental shelf and slope waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the east coast of Florida and constitutes a unit stock throughout its range. The species is highly migratory, growth is rapid and the lifespan is short, up to 215 days for individuals inhabiting the USA shelf. I. illecebrosus is semelparous and females spawn and die within several days of mating. Thus, natural mortality increases with age for the age range where spawning occurs. Fishing mortality and spawning mortality occur simultaneously. Stock structure is complicated by the overlap of seasonal cohorts. Age data indicate that spawning occurs throughout the year and that the first several months of the US fishery are supported by the winter cohort. The onset and duration of the fisheries occur in relation to annual migration patterns on and off the continental shelf which appear to be highly influenced by environmental conditions. On the USA shelf, a bottom trawl fishery generally occurs during June through October. Since its inception in 1987, the domestic fishery has taken a majority of the total annual landings. In recent years, there has been no fishery on the Scotian Shelf and landings from the Newfoundland jig fishery have been very low. There are no stockwide research surveys and it is unknown whether NEFSC research bottom trawl surveys track