Computation and Interpretation of Biological Statistics of Fish Populations

Ricker (Department of the Environment Fisheries and Marine Service, Pacific Biological Station) produced a guide to gathering and processing biological statistics of fish populations in 1948 and 1958, but when he tried to revise it again, he realized that too much had changed. So he started over, recycling earlier material that still applied. Among the methods he describes are estimating survival rate and mortality rate from age composition, single-season experiments in vital statistics from marking, estimating stock and mortality from statistics of the catch and its qualitative composition, growth in length and in weight, recruitment and stock-recruitment relationships, and the direct estimate of the relation of equilibrium yields to size of stock and rate of fishing. The 1975 edition, apparently published by the Department, was reprinted in 1981, and is reproduced here. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)