Canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 1

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Assessment summary

Assessment summary – November 2007

Common name:
Canary Rockfish

Scientific name:
Sebastes Pinniger

Status:
Threatened

Reason for designation:
A comparatively large (maximum weight 5.7 kg), orange-yellow fish that typically inhabits rocky bottoms at 70-270 m depths from the western Gulf of Alaska south to northern California. Its late maturity (13 years for females), long maximum lifespan (84 years), and long generation time (20-30 years) are characteristic of species that are slow to recover following population decline. The species is treated as a single designatable unit. Two surveys in the southern part of its Canadian range considered the most reliable indicators of population trend, and show abundance index declines of 78% and 96% over 30 years and 17 years respectively. Survey indices from the northern part of the range and commercial catch per unit effort indices show no consistent trends but are of relatively short duration and are in some cases based on methods which do not adequately sample areas inhabited by the species. There is uncertainty due to high variability in the various index series (characteristic of trawl surveys) and the unknown degree to which abundance trends in the southern part of the Canadian range reflect abundance trends throughout the species' range in Canadian waters. Fishing is the most likely cause of the observed decline. Changes to management since 1995 include 100% observers or video monitoring coverage and implementation of individual transferable quotas, which are expected to improve control of fishing. Rescue from contiguous populations to the south is unlikely given that current abundance in the US is estimated at 5-10% of unfished levels, and rescue from populations to the north is uncertain because their status is not well known.

Occurrence:
Pacific Ocean

Status history:
Designated Threatened in November 2007. Assessment based on a new status report.

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