Title: California fish and game
Identifier: californiafishga75_3cali (find matches)
Year: [1] (s)
Authors: California. Dept. of Fish and Game; California. Fish and Game Commission; California. Division of Fish and Game
Subjects: Fisheries -- California; Game and game-birds -- California; Fishes -- California; Animal Population Groups; Pêches; Gibier; Poissons
Publisher: (San Francisco, etc. ) State of California, Resources Agency, Dept. of Fish and Game
Contributing Library: California Department of Fish and Game
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
170 CALIFORNIA FISH AND CAME function well in dim light. However, their night-feeding normally occurs in obstruction-free surface waters offshore (Alton and Nelson 1970, Livingston 1983), where there is no danger of stranding or of colliding with abrasive surfaces. We suggest that it was the inability of YOY shortbellies and hake to accommodate their behaviors to these dangers in the obstruction-filled waters near shore that resulted in the recently observed mortalities.
Text Appearing After Image:
FIGURE 1. Carcasses of hake and shortbelly rockfish on the seabed beneath a shoreline YOY shortbelly school on the Sonoma coast. Arrow points to stomach gorged with YOY shortbellies (readily identifiable through the distended stomach wall) protruding from the decomposed body of a hake. The acute stress evident in the YOY shortbellies and hake was in sharp contrast with the healthy condition evident in nearby members of the nearshore community. The neighboring residents included YOY of several Sebastes species, most notably blue rockfish, S. mystinus, black rockfish, 5. melanops, and yellowtail rockfish, 5. flavidus. These YOY rockfishes were numerous over most of the nearshore habitat, but, unlike the YOY shortbellies, they were not concentrated at the shoreline. Furthermore, we saw none that appeared in poor condition, none among the carcasses on shore, and none in the stomachs of hake. In fact, we have no evidence they were in any way stressed, which supports our conclusion that the problems suffered by the YOY shortbellies and hake resulted from being maladapted to nearshore conditions, not from problems suffered by the nearshore environment. While it may be that the hake entered the nearshore habitat to feed on the YOY shortbellies, this still leaves us to question why the YOY shortbellies were there. That the strandings occurred during June follows from this being a time

Note About Images