FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 



demonstrably overfished (Hennemuth 5 ; Brown 

 and Hennemuth 6 ; Schumaker and Anthony 7 ). In 

 addition, the June 1975 report of the ICNAF 

 Standing Committee on Research and Statistics 

 (STACRES) indicates that finfish landings for the 

 1971-74 period have substantially exceeded the 



5 Hennemuth, R. C. 1969. Status of the Georges Bank haddock 

 fishery. Int. Comm. Northwest Atl. Fish. Annu. Meet. 1969, Res. 

 Doc. No. 90, Serial No. 2256 (mimeo.), 21 p. 



s Brown, B. E., and R. C. Hennemuth. 1971. Assessment of the 

 yellowtail flounder fishery in Subarea 5. Int. Comm. Northwest 

 Atl. Fish. Annu. Meet. 1971, Res. Doc. No. 14, Serial No. 2599 

 (mimeo.), 57 p. 



7 Schumaker, A., and V. C. Anthony. 1972. Georges Bank 

 (ICNAF Division 5Z and Subarea 6) herring assessment. Int. 

 Comm. Northwest Atl. Fish. Annu. Meet. 1972, Res. Doc. No. 24, 

 Serial No. 2715 (mimeo.), 36 p. 



MSY point (International Commission for the 

 Northwest Atlantic Fisheries 1975c). 



This expansion in fishing activity in recent 

 years has stimulated considerable interest in its 

 possible effects on biomass levels and productiv- 

 ity. Edwards (1968) developed biomass estimates 

 for the area extending from Hudson Canyon to the 

 Nova Scotia shelf (strata 1-40, Figure 1) by ad- 

 justing 1963-66 U.S. research vessel survey 

 catches to compensate for availability and vul- 

 nerability to the survey gear by species and es- 

 timated that the annual harvest from this area 

 (1.2 x 10 6 tons) approximated one-fourth of the 

 fishable biomass during that period. He also re- 

 ported a rapid decrease in fishable biomass during 



B 



FIGURE 1. — Northwest Atlantic area from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras, (a) delineated into strata by depth, and (b) delineated into 

 major units for analytical purposes, with ICNAF division boundaries superimposed. 



