slightly brackish spawning grounds in 

 the upper reaches of estuarine sys- 

 tems. Research and management in- 

 terests in this species have in- 

 creased markedly in the past decade 

 because of stock declines. Recent 

 bibliographies were produced by 

 Pfuderer et al. (1975), Rogers and 

 Westin (1975) and Horseman and 

 Kernehan in 1976. Early accounts of 

 striped bass life histories were 

 published by Scofield (1931), Pearson 

 (1938) and Merriman (1941). Raney 

 (1952) produced a useful summary of 

 striped bass biology and life 

 history. Synopses of biological data 

 on the striped bass have been devel- 

 oped recently by Smith and Wells 

 (1977), Westin and Rogers, (1978) and 

 Setzler et al. (1980). 



The species' natural distri- 

 bution in coastal North America is 

 from the Alabama River on the gulf 

 coast (Brown (1965) to the St. 

 Lawrence River in Canada (Magnin and 

 Beaulieu 1967). Stocking programs 

 have successfully introduced striped 

 bass along the West Coast of the 

 United States where they are reported 

 to range from Ensenada , Mexico, to 

 the Columbia River, British Columbia 

 (Scofield 1931; Forrester et al. 

 1972) . Striped bass have been intro- 

 duced and established in numerous in- 

 land freshwater systems in the United 

 States (Bailey 1975) and have also 

 been transported to Portugal, Russia, 

 and France (Stevens 1966; Delor 

 1973). In the middle of their 

 natural East Coast range (Cape 

 Hatteras to New England) , striped 

 bass are known to undergo extensive 

 coastal migrations; such migratory 

 activity is rare toward the extremes 

 of their range. 



Spawning occurs in the Gulf of 

 Mexico from February through May 

 (Barkuloo 1961, 1970) and occurs pro- 

 gressively later in more northern 



(Barkuloo 1961, 1970) and occurs pro- 

 gressively later in more northern 

 waters. (Raney 1952, Bigelow and 

 Schroeder 1953, Barkuloo 1970). The 

 Chesapeake Bay system has been 

 identified as the principal spawning 

 and nursery area for striped bass on 

 the Atlantic coast and may contribute 

 as much as 90 percent of recruitment 

 to the fishery in Atlantic coastal 

 waters (Kumar and Van Winkle 1978; 

 Berggren and Lieberman 1978) . Within 

 the Chesapeake system, the Potomac 

 estuary contributes about 20 percent 

 of the striped bass stock, based upon 

 commercial landings. 



This species is noted for fluc- 

 tuations in abundance which in turn 

 are attributed to periodicities in 

 dominant year classes. Van Winkle 

 et al. (1979) noted that ..."stat- 

 istically significant periodicities 

 of approximately 20 year and of 6 to 

 8 year are common to the time series 

 for most states and regions." They 

 stated further that ..."Since the 

 periodicities are neither very pro- 

 nounced nor simple, it is difficult 

 to isolate the causative factors, 

 which are most likely to be density- 

 independent environmental factors 

 enhancing survival of the young than 

 intrinsic characteristics of the life 

 cycle of striped bass." (Van Winkle 

 et al. , 1979: 54). 



There has not been a strong 

 year-class of striped bass pro- 

 duced since 1970 on the East Coast 

 and the yield from the fishery has 

 declined markedly. As a result, 

 substantial concern has been ex- 

 pressed and it has been suggested 

 that contaminants are now limiting 

 striped bass success. The effects of 

 heavy metals and petrochemicals upon 

 striped bass are currently being in- 

 vestigated (Whipple et al. 1979). The 

 reauthorization of the Anadromous 

 Fish Conservation Act (PS96-118) 



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