North Pacific hake
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| Merluccius productus (Ayres, 1855) |
The North Pacific hake, Pacific hake, or Pacific whiting, Merluccius productus, is a merluccid hake of the genus Merluccius, found in the north east Pacific Ocean from northern Vancouver Island to the northern part of the Gulf of California, from the surface to depths of 1,000 metres. Its length is about 3 ft (90 cm). It spawns from January to June, and its diet includes shrimp, plankton and smaller fishes. Coloration is metallic silver-gray with black speckling and pure silver on the belly.
[edit] Fisheries
The North Pacific hake commercial fishery is the largest off the West Coast of the United States and British Columbia. North Pacific hake is primarily made into surimi, a minced fish product used to make imitation crab and other products. More recently, there has been growth in the production of hake fillets.
The fishery developed in the 1960s with the arrival of distant water fleets from the former Soviet Union and eastern European nations. In the 1980s the fishery in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (i.e., 200 miles seaward of state waters) evolved into a joint venture operation between foreign at-sea processing vessels and U.S. catcher vessels. By the 1990s, the fishery had developed into a domestic fishery with three distinct sectors:
- Catcher/Processors that harvest and process at sea (see Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative)
- Motherships that take deliveries from catcher vessels and process at-sea
- Shoreside processors that take deliveries from catcher vessels.
U.S. coastal treaty tribes in Washington comprise a fourth sector of the North Pacific hake fishery. Per an agreement with the U.S. government, coastal treaty Tribes receive a specific annual allocation of whiting (see Midwater Trawlers Cooperative v. U.S. Dept of Commerce, 2004). Their allocation is based on the level of allowable of harvest, which varies year-to-year. For example, in 2007 the U.S. harvest level is 242,591 mt; of this amount the Makah Tribe was allocated 32,500 mt. The Quileute Tribe is also eligible for an allocation, but have not been active in the fishery in recent years.
Since 2000, annual catch in the non-tribal hake fishery has averaged about 160,000 mt per year.
The Pacific whiting fishery in U.S. and Canadian waters is governed by the Pacific Hake Agreement. The Hake Agreement became law on January 12, 2007 when President Bush signed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006. The U.S. and Canada are currently implementing provisions of the Hake Agreement, including appointments to various technical, management, and advisory committees. During the implementation phase, the whiting fishery is being managed in accordance with provisions in the Agreement, most notably the harvest sharing framework that allocates 73.88% of the annual harvest to U.S. fisheries and 26.12% to Canadian fisheries.
In the U.S., the whiting fishery is managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), specifically the NMFS-Northwest Region. The shoreside sector of the fishery is managed cooperatively between NMFS and state fishery management agencies; information about the shoreside fishery is available from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife-Shoreside Hake Observer Program.
Each year, the at-sea fishery (comprised of catcher/processor and mothership sectors) starts on May 15th. The primary shoreside fishery opens June 15th.
[edit] References
- "Merluccius productus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. April 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
