International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade
Abstract
Pacific whiting (Merluccius productus) is one of the most commercially valuable fish species in the Pacific coast groundfish fishery, experiences extreme variability in annual recruitment. This variability causes fluctuations in stock abundance and subsequent catch and economic benefits. This study develops a stochastic bioeconomic model of the Pacific whiting fishery in order to assess various fishing strategies based upon economic and biological criteria. The stochastic fisheries model relies on a hockey-stick recruitment function with wide variance, generating occasional extremely large recruitment. In response to stock variability, we examine linear harvest strategies which close the fishery when estimated biomass falls below a stipulated given minimum biomass level (B[min]), and set catch quotas as a fraction of surplus of existing biomass above the minimum biomass level (B[y]-B[min]). To simulate the variability of results from each strategy we performed 1,000 50-year simulations. The results are summarized as average and variance of annual harvest, biomass and 50-year Net Present Values (NPV) for the fishery. This study concludes that the harvest strategy with low minimum biomass (5% of unfished biomass) and low fraction (0.2) would be desirable for three reasons: (1) maximization of NPV, (2) stochastic dominance and (3) biomass conservation.Keywords: bioeconomics, Fisheries Economics, fluctuating fish stock, stochastic model, Theoretical and Empirical Bio-Economic Analysis, Pacific whiting fisheryKeywords: bioeconomics, Fisheries Economics, fluctuating fish stock, stochastic model, Theoretical and Empirical Bio-Economic Analysis, Pacific whiting fisher
