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| Marine Resource Fact Sheet |
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| | Swordfish - northeastern Pacific Ocean, 2005 |
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| | Owned by | Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)
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| Main Descriptors | Considered a single stock: Yes
Spatial Scale: Regional
Considered a management unit: Yes |
| Considered a single stock: A group of individuals in a species occupying a well defined spatial range independent of other stocks of the same species. It can be affected by random dispersal movements and directed migrations due to seasonal or reproductive activity. |
| Spatial Scale: Spatial scale contains a standard term such as Global, Regional (e.g. for the whole Atlantic), sub-regional (e.g. for a part of the Atlantic), national, local (for sub-national levels). |
| Considered a management unit: An aquatic resource or fishery is
declared as [Fishery] Management Unit if it is
effectively the focus for the application of selected
management methods and measures, within the broader
framework of a management system. According to the FAO
Glossary for Responsible Fishing, "a Fishery Management
Unit (FMU) is a fishery or a portion of a fishery
identified in a Fishery Management Plan (FMP) relevant
to the FMP's management objectives." FMU's may be
organised around fisheries biological, geographic,
economic, technical, social or ecological dimensions ,
and the makeup and attribute of a fishery management
unit depends mainly on the FMP's management
objectives. |
| Jurisdictional distribution: Jurisdictional qualifier (e.g.
"shared", "shared - highly migratory") of the aquatic
resource related with its spatial distribution. |
| Environmental group: Classification of the aquatic
resource according to the environmental group (e.g.
pelagic invertebrate, or demersal fish) to which the
species belong. |
| | | | | | Habitat and Biology Bottom type: Unspecified Depth zone: Abyssal Horizontal distribution: Oceanic Vertical distribution: Pelagic Geographical Distribution Jurisdictional distribution: Highly migratory Geo References  | | Distribution of Swordfish - northeastern Pacific Ocean
| Pacific Tuna Major reporting areas | NEPO: North East Pacific Ocean |
| | | | | | Intersecting Major FAO areas and LME areas |
The following area codes have been found as intersecting the distribution of Swordfish - northeastern Pacific Ocean | (LME) Large Marine Ecosystem Areas | 2: Gulf of Alaska | | 3: California Current | | 4: Gulf of California | | 11: Pacific Central American Coast |
Resource Structure Considered a single stock: Yes Management Considered a management unit: Yes Biological State and Trend Exploitation state: Moderately exploited
The results of the most recent assessment for the swordfish stock in areas north of 10°N and west of 135°W indicate that in recent years the biomass level has been stable and well above 50% of the unexploited levels of stock biomass, indicating that swordfish are not overexploited at current levels of fishing effort. The standardized catches-per-unit-of-effort (CPUEs) of the longline fisheries in the northern region of the EPO and trends in relative abundance obtained from it does not indicate declining abundance. Attempts to fit production models to the data failed to produce estimates of management parameters, such as average maximum sustainable yield, under reasonable assumptions of natural mortality rates, due to lack of contrast in the trends. This lack of contrast suggests that the fisheries that have been taking swordfish in these regions have not been of magnitudes sufficient to cause significant responses in the populations. Based on these considerations, and the historically stable catches, it appears that swordfish are not overfished in the northern region of the EPO. Source of information “Tunas and billfishes in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 2004. Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission” Anonymous 2005 Fishery Status Report 3 IATTC  . Bibliography “Status of swordfish stocks in the eastern Pacific Ocean estimated using data from Japanese tuna longline fisheries.” Hinton, M.G. 2003 Marine & Freshwater Research, 54(4): 393-399. “Report of the Swordfish Working Group. Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. January 29-31, 2004. 24 p.” Anonymous 2004 ISC-4/Plenary/07 ISC. “Assessment of swordfish in the eastern Pacific Ocean” Hinton, M.G., W.H. Bayliff, and J.M. Suter 2004 Stock Assessment Report 5 IATTC . |
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