Assessment of the Silver Hake Resource in the Northwest Atlantic in 2000

摘要

Silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis) is a short-lived gadid that ranges from Newfoundland to South Carolina. This species is an important component of the food web in the northeast continental shelf ecosystem (Sissenwine and Cohen 1991), and according to Bigelow and Schroeder (1953), 'Silver hake are strong swift swimmers, well armed and extremely voracious'. In the U.S. EEZ, the silver hake population was intensively harvested by distant water fleets during the 1960s and 1970s with peak annual landings of over 300,000 mt. Since 1980, annual landings have remained stable at roughly 20,000 mt in what is now an entirely domestic fishery. Silver hake was last assessed in 1993 at SAW 17. In that assessment, an age-structured analysis of the population in two stock areas was attempted, but results were not considered to be reliable. As a result, the previous assessment was index-based and current overfishing thresholds for silver hake are based on research survey information. The current assessment was undertaken for SAW 32 (2001), where stock assessments for sea scallops, American plaice, Gulf of Maine haddock, and silver hake were reviewed. An Advisory Report on Stock Status and a Consensus Summary of Assessments have been published in draft form as a result of that meeting (NEFSC 2001a, 2001b). This report is intended to serve as a detailed description of the assessment accepted and reviewed by the SAW.