History : Gear for squid includes pound nets, otter trawls, 

 floating traps, and rarely haul seines. 



Foreign fishing began in 1975 with an incidental catch. 

 Mean squid catch for 1972-1976 for all countries except the U.S. 

 was 50,000 tons, peaking in 1973 at 56,768 metric tons. For- 

 eign landings are currently about 95% of all squid landings. 

 Squid are taken as a bycatch for silver hake, red hake, other 

 groundfish, herring, mackerel and some other pelagic and fin- 

 fish. 



Status : Squid are shor-t lived and fluctuate widely in 

 abundance. Preliminary data analysis indicated that Loligo num- 

 bers in 1977 in the southern New England mid-Atlantic area were 

 18% greater than in 1976, but 23% less than in 197 5. The plan 

 concluded that even on conservative estimates , this would be 

 adequate to support an OY of 44,000 tons for Loligo. For illex, 

 abundance has increased sharply from 1974 to 1976. Catches as 

 high as 20,000 tons have not had an apparent impact on produc- 

 tion when the population has been large. The USSR estimated 

 minimum biomass of illex on Georges Bank as 100,000, 58,000, 

 197,000 and 258,000 tons for the summers of 1971, 1972, 1975, 

 and 1976 respectively. 



MSY estimated for Loligo in the plan was 44,000 tons based 

 on recruitment of 1.5 billion individuals to the population an- 

 nually. A preliminary estimate of MSY for illex was' 40,000 

 tons. The plan indicated that the Council chose conservative 

 values for MSY. 



OY set in the plan restricted the harvests of illex to 

 30,000 metric tons and Loligo to 44,000 metric tons. Foreign 

 harvests were limited to 20,000 metric tons and 30,000 metric 

 tons respectively for 1979. 



OYs were set at conservative levels of estimated MSY for 

 Loligo and at 75% of the estimated MSY for illex to allow for 

 incomplete data. 



Review : The plan contained no explicit mention of the 

 MMPA. However, the potential impact of several years of scarce 

 squid on habitat for pilot whales and possibly other marine 

 mammals was recognized. Optimum carrying capacity and OSP for 

 pilot whales were not addressed in the plan, nor were any im- 

 pacts on the habitat or ecosystem extrapolated from proposed 

 catch levels. 



The combined OY of 74,000 metric tons was the same as 

 recent ICNAF quotas , but higher than recent catches . Squid are 

 fish food. There has been some concern among fishermen that 



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