The U.S. Pacific Region

This chapter describes the Pacific region and the major issues facing this marine fisheries ecosystem, and presents some summary statistics related to the 90 indicators of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) criteria. The Pacific contains the sixth-highest number of managed taxa in the nation, including commercially and recreationally important salmon, Pacific sardine, and other coastal pelagic species, Pacific groundfish (e.g., rockfishes, flatfishes, halibut, Pacific hake, Pacific cod, sablefish, lingcod), cephalopods, Dungeness crab, and highly migratory fishes. The Pacific ecosystem emerges as an environment with biota and marine communities that are responding to the consequences of historical overexploitation of its fisheries resources, habitat loss, increasing coastal development, nutrient loading, HABs, ocean acidification, climate forcing, marine heatwaves, and other ocean uses. Overall, EBFM progress has been made at the regional level, and to a certain degree within subregions, in terms of implementing ecosystem-level planning, advancing knowledge of ecosystem principles, and in assessing risks and vulnerabilities to ecosystems through ongoing investigations into climate vulnerability and species prioritizations for stock and habitat assessments. While information has been obtained and calculations and models developed, and some progress has been made toward incorporating ecosystem information in LMR management, limited progress has been made on using ecosystem-level emergent properties in management frameworks or exploring system trade-offs.

Environmental variability and fishing effects on the Pacific sardine fisheries in the Gulf of California

Small pelagic fish support some of the largest fisheries globally, yet there is an ongoing debate about the magnitude of the impacts of environmental processes and fishing activities on target species. We use a nonparametric, nonlinear approach to quantify these effects on the Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) in the Gulf of California. We show that the effect of fishing pressure and environmental variability are comparable. Furthermore, when predicting total catches, the best models account for both drivers. By using empirical dynamic programming with average environmental conditions, we calculated optimal policies to ensure long-term sustainable fisheries. The first policy, the equilibrium maximum sustainable yield, suggests that the fishery could sustain an annual catch of ∼2.16 × 105 tonnes. The second policy with dynamic optimal effort, reveals that the effort from 2 to 4 years ago impacts the current maximum sustainable effort. Consecutive years of high effort require a reduction to let the stock recover. Our work highlights a new framework that embraces the complex processes that drive fisheries population dynamics yet produces simple and robust advice to ensure long-term sustainable fisheries.

Assessments of 16 Exploited Fish Stocks in Chinese Waters Using the CMSY and BSM Methods

Sixteen marine fish species (populations) exploited by Chinese fisheries were assessed, using published time series of catch and the CMSY and BSM methods. Given the catch times series as inputs, some ancillary information and reasonable constraints, carrying capacity, maximum sustainable yield, and likely time series of biomass and exploitation rate were estimated. The results show that one (7%) of the assessed species was severely depleted, four species (27%) were fully/overfished, six (40%) were outside of safe biological limits, one species (7%) was recovering and three species (20%) were in a healthy state at the end year of their assessment. However, one species, Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax), could not be assessed using CMSY, as the exceedingly large fluctuations of its biomass were mainly environmentally driven. These results correspond with previous knowledge on the status of fish populations along the coast of China, where overfishing is rampant. Based on these assessments, some of the benefits that would result from a reduction of the excessive fishing effort are outlined.

Prospects for Salted Pacific Sardine (Ivasi) as a Raw Material for Emulsion Products

Expanding the range of functional food products is one of the important tasks of the Russian state policy to improve the population health. Water bioresources due to their high biological value consists of the potential for creating such products. The article presents the technological characteristics of the Pacific salted sardine (iwasi) as a promising highfat raw material rich in valuable natural lipids for multi-component emulsion products. The Pacific sardine (ivasi) extracted in the far East is a mass object of marine fishing. However, the food production from the sardines is currently limited by frozen and salted fish. In order to expand the food product range from the Pacific sardine (ivasi), the paper concerns the technological parameters of the salted fish production process and justification of its use as a basis for emulsion systems. The authors present technological scheme for obtaining salted Pacific sardine (iwashi) from frozen fish. The dynamic analysis of proteolysis indicators during the storage period of salted sardines indicates an active accumulation of protein breakdown products during the protein component destruction. Organoleptic assessment of salted fish performed in the third and fourth months of storage showed that, in the absence of discrediting organoleptic signs in the samples under study, a man recorded the destruction of the abdominal area in the fourth month of storage. The rheological studies results of finely ground muscle tissue of salted sardines, in comparison with frozen fish, demonstrate an increase in these indicators in the proteolysis process. Biochemical, rheological and organoleptic characteristics of salted Pacific sardine (iwasi) in the fourth month of storage indicate its high raw material potential for use in the technology of emulsion products.