Fishing Characteristics of Pacific Herring Clupea pallasii and Relationship between Its Catch and Sea Temperature during the Past 50 Years in Korean Waters

摘要

This study described the fishing characteristics of Pacific herring Clupea pallasii and examined the relationship between its catch and sea temperature in Korean waters from 1970 to 2019. Although the herring catch in Korean waters stayed below 1,000tons per year from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, the catch in the winters in the East Sea of Korea started to increase markedly after 1987-1988, when the sea surface temperature (SST) seemed to shift to a warmer regime. Since the mid-2000s, overall, herring was caught throughout the year in the East Sea and eastern South Sea of Korea, and its catch significantly increased by around 30,000 tons per year. The main fishing grounds of herring in the poor fishing years until the mid-1980s were possibly formedin the western offshore of Korea, and subsequently the fishing grounds were distributed in the eastern coast of Korea. While the standardized catch per unit effort (CPUE) for two main fisheries of herring catch was significantly correlated with the herring catch since the 2000s, there was a gradual decline since the 2010s. The herring catch in the East Sea had significant positive correlations with SSTs, but that in the West Sea had a significant negative correlation.