FMAT Working Paper (DO NOT CITE) 9/15/2011 Part I. Analyses for Amendment 14 to the Atlantic mackerel, squid and butterfish Fishery Management Plan 1.0 Survey relative abundance and biomass indices 1.1 Background The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commi

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.395.9098; http://www.nero.noaa.gov/regs/2013/August/13smbamend14prfeisapend.pdf

river herring (Alosa pseudoharengus, alewife, and Alosa aestivalis, blueback herring) stock assessment, but the results are not yet available. The most recent stock assessment of American shad (Alosa sappidissima) was conducted using data through 2005 (ASMFC 2007), but hickory shad Alosa mediocris has not been assessed. Therefore, in order to evaluate trends in oceanic population sizes, relative abundance and biomass indices were derived for these species using catch data from research bottom trawl surveys conducted by the NEFSC on the eastern US continental shelf. These anadromous species spend most of their lives in oceanic waters but migrate into freshwater to spawn. The oceanic ranges of all four species extend beyond the northern and southern latitudinal range of the NEFSC spring and fall surveys, which occur from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, NC (35 30 ’ to 44 30 ’ N). The geographic range of blueback herring in the northwest Atlantic extends from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to the St. Johns River in FL and the range of American shad extends from the Sand Hill River in Labrador to the St. John’s River in FL (Page and Burr 1991). The geographic range of alewife extends from Red Bay, Labrador, to SC. Hickory shad have a narrower geographic range than these three species and is most abundant between Cape Cod, MA and the St. John’s River in FL, but is also infrequently found in the Gulf of Maine