Why Big, Old, Fat, Fertile Female Fish Are The Rockstars Of The Ocean

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boffffs-big-fat-fish-research_n_6039252
Why Big, Old, Fat, Fertile Female Fish Are The Rockstars Of The Ocean
By James Cave

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The next time you catch a BOFFFF, maybe you should throw her back.
A growing collection of research shows that big, old, fat, fertile female fish — what scientists call BOFFFFs — are critically important to ocean fisheries because they’re basically rockstars of reproduction.
Conventional wisdom has held that, in order to protect ocean stocks and maintain strong populations, fishermen should catch big fish but release smaller ones so that they can grow, produce eggs and continue the circle of life.
But in the October 2014 issue of the “ICES Journal of Marine Science”, three experts argue that fishing efforts should focus on medium sized fish, rather than snatching out and bragging about the huge ones.
“The loss of big fish [often] decreases the productivity and stability of fishery stocks,” explained Mark Hixon, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, who published the paper with California State University marine biologist Darren Johnson and NOAA Fisheries ecologist Susan Sogard. Such loss, the trio wrote, can lead to a fish population’s collapse.
BOFFFFs are so vital because they produce more and larger eggs that have a better chance of developing into larvae that can withstand threats, the paper posits. BOFFFFs also tend to have longer spawning sessions, may spawn in a wider range of locations than smaller fish, and are more likely to survive bad years, reproducing feverishly when conditions improve.
The BOFFFF hypothesis — and that funny name — is credited to biologist Alan Longhurst and late fisheries ecologist Steven Berkley, who noticed that older, bigger fish produced exponentially more eggs than younger females.
“Smaller females are more susceptible to predation, and so may be more restricted to safer habitats and thus different food supplies,” Hixon told Marine Protected Areas News in 2007. “Smaller females must also devote more energy to growth than larger females, which can devote more energy to reproduction.”
His latest report says that, by implementing slot limits (regulations in recreational fishing that only allow for the catching of medium sized fish), establishing marine reserves, or reducing our exploitation rates, the productivity and stability of fisheries would likely ensure that “pockets of old-growth age structure survive.”
The moral is honor thy BOFFFF, in other words — especially if you want to ensure long term replenishment and stability in your fishing community.

Isn't this the premise upon which the Australian fish conservancy measures are based ?

Not sure, but it is in most first world countries by now. Places like the states have systematically brought each fishery back from collapse to now where in some they are in better shape than prefished times..figure that?!..Unnatural selection can work against us, ie. unsustainable harvesting of breeding stock or spawning aggregations, or it can work for us, as in selective breeding and animal husbandry. If we select the genetically smaller and more stupid fish and cull those, the overall stock can actually improve to better than it was before we started fishing it, get yer heads around that?!!! Why go uphill when one can just go downhill..We in SA still backward, gov' does nothing to educate as much as they rant on about the economy of the sea, they try as much as possible to slaughter the golden goose and let us plod along uphill. They do not take care of nursery areas nor stocks, allowing commercial harvesting of those with nets and environmental degradation of the estauries and nursery areas to get worse. For example, cape town which is the nursery for yellowtail, the trek netting of juveniles is allowed and when they can do it is when the weather concentrates the entire stock in a few bays and it gets hammered and it affects the rest of the recreational and commercial fisheries all the way up the coast for years to come later...and most of the cities poo is pumped pretty much untreated into the sea, the poo that isn't pumped into the sea, gets treated sort of and still makes its way into the sea in false bay. There is not a functioning estuary left in cape town. Parliament sits there and they can "economy of the sea" all they like but action starts at home. And then again, we could all be doing things the right way and estuaries and trek/gill netting aside, harvesting correctly and still stocks could just improve and improve till they reach momentum and we start coasting downhill. So even if the lawmakers don't come to the party for most inshore species or reef species we can be the difference.

Or we could carry on with the uphill battle of trying to scratch a feed for today in an seemingly empty sea.
I think the figures for dusky cob are that one large 35kg-50kg plus female will make the same number of surviving larvae each spawn season as 1000-5000 younger 5-8kg just spawning size females (5000eggs just starting out at breeding size verse up to 25 million eggs over longer spawn season for big old gals)..and those larvae from the big old fish have a 10x or TEN TIMES higher survival rate than the ones from the younger fish. Literally the older BOFF cob has the breeding potential of 10 000 to 50 000, 5-8kg cob..I cant hardly even get my head around it. One should be shot by firing squad for taking the life of one of those fish. And currently the regulations regarding commercial and recreational harvest hardly recognize that and commercially incentivize the harvest of the spawning aggregations and allow the species to be targeting as by catch on inshore trawl. Madness.

Ja if that does not wake us the @#%$ up I don't know what will ?!

yip, I can kick myself for keeping the big ones initially.
but most of us make the same mistake.

well, they are much luckier now!!!!
all big fish going back.

well I only keep certain species now.
so they will get a chance to recover from my side.

WWS..If everyone decided to be the change that you are..the fishing would get pretty good..The fishing economy would be thriving..everyone on this forum could make a living off the sea somehow...Right now we are scratching for crumbs..
But the bait is in good shape, the sards are on the low side but improving, anchovie and red eye, mackerel are all in better shape than they have been in decades..Chokka not much this season but due to weather and currents more than anything else, stock in good shape, last year was best season since the fishery opened decades ago.. So lots of food..Katonkel (sarda sarda) are back and in abundance after a few decades absence and they are even bait for bigger stuff! Longfin stock not bad, yellowfin stocks on the up and up as the chinese fleet is kept away from the inshore areas up off north east africa which is the spawn ground for our stock.. Conservation measures in Auz and as well as 20 years of international bluefin conservation, and more young bluefin off Auz than they have ever seen since the old days, and the adults like to migrate here for a feed if there is bait...so ja all looking good for the future if we look after breeding stocks and perhaps someone finally ends beach trekking and other netting for recruitment stock of fish that are far more valuable as adults to the rest of the country.