Maturity of Greenland Halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) in the Fjords of Northwest Greenland. by

• Main Authors: Claus S. Simonsen, Agnes C. Gundersen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Barents Sea; Greenland; Disko Bay
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.561.954; http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2002/scr02-038.pdf

In order to clarify the spawning of Greenland halibut in the fjords of West Greenland we performed a study on the maturity of Greenland halibut in Disko Bay. Our goals were to: 1) Describe the maturity of the female fish throughout the year by looking at the oocyte development month by month. 2) If growth in maturity was observed, then locate the time of spawning. 3) To quantify the amount of fish participating in the fjord spawning. Each month up to 60 fish bigger than 70 cm were random sampled from the commercial landings. The relation between gonad and fish weight was used to set up a gonadosomatic index. The oocyte development was followed month by month by diameter analysis. Due to sampling failure from June and onwards we were not able to give a yearly maturation cycle for the oocytes of the Greenland halibut in Disko Bay. There was no clear evidence to an overall increase in gonad weight in during the four months investigated. Gonad index indicated that most ovaries were in an immature or early maturing stage. However, when looking at the oocyte development month by month a weak trend to an increase in the oocyte size was evident with respect to the diameter range of the leading cohort. If spawning is happing in Disko Bay we believe that the most likely period for any extensive spawning is the same as in the Barents Sea namely November-January. Based on the available data we were not able to quantify the proportion of Greenland halibut in Disko Bay participating in such a spawning event.