At the end of my professional career at 77 years of age, I had the opportunity to make a resume of my past work on Google Cloud, intended for personal reference of close colleagues and to help me send my early publications to young scientists in developing countries who complain of the difficulty of obtaining published material not available on the web. With few exceptions I have included here all papers I can recall writing in my career, but am ready to immediately withdraw a publication from this site if there are objections forthcoming!
A brief career resumé
From 1966 until 1978 I worked for the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, then for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. From 1978 to 1999, I was employed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. My experience in fisheries biology, population dynamics and fish stock assessment is reported in some 100+ primary publications and books on fishery-related issues, many of which are given below in electronic form. While at the FAO I was involved in international policy issues, designed national fishery research programs, and drafted government fishery management plans and cooperative projects. FAO reports mentioned below are available through the Organization (see list below).
Approaching the end of my scientific productivity in 2015, like many scientists of my age, I was aware that more than half of my scientific productivity occurred before pdf’s of research papers were available through the web. Hence my early work was of doubtful availability now that reprints of early papers are used up, so it seemed reasonable to make an effort to prepare pdf’s where copyright regulations permit.
Though autobiographies are unconventional for scientists, my discoveries in several fields are a result of a broad scientific approach. In a semi-humorous mode, the Mexican journal, Investigaciones Pesqueras, agreed last year to publish the ‘missing’ paper from my PhD Thesis 45 years after concluding my molluscan research in the Thames Estuary. I see this as evidence that I have completed my ‘post thesis’ efforts and can retire definitively!
My work on fisheries began with shellfish research and two summers as a student assistant at the Burnham-on-Crouch shellfish laboratory in Essex in 1962-3, where I assisted Donald Hancock and Duncan Waugh in their investigations on the cockle and oyster fisheries. Later, it was during one of my visits to Burnham laboratory that I saw an advert for a position of a shellfish biologist with the Fisheries Research Board of Canada laboratory at St Andrews NB, and applied for the post.
My first professional research topic was on invertebrate fisheries, particularly the scallop, Placopecten magellanicus. While working within a government research structure it was difficult to extend my work to other resources, but changes began after my sabbatical year at the University of Washington in 1973-4. With the help of an expert programmer, Larry Gales, while there, I converted my spatial model of the scallop fishery on Georges Bank into Fortran. Later on, Mexican colleagues J. C. Seijo and J. Euan modified the model (YAREA) into a published software package. My early career emphasis on management of marine invertebrate fisheries was summarized in the 1989 multi-author book issued by John Wiley.
After 10 years of work on offshore shellfish, with a focus on underwater methodologies (scuba and submersibles), I increased my knowledge of fishery theory during a sabbatical year at the University of Washington, Seattle. On my return, large pelagic fisheries in the Atlantic were added to my responsibilities as Canada’s representative at ICCAT. I spent two years researching large pelagic (swordfish and bluefin tuna) populations. I became the scientific reporter for Canada at ICCAT, and in 1973 we demonstrated otolith sections which showed that large bluefin were much older than previously reported from fin ray sections – a result which should have led to specific management results for a seriously overexploited species. The following year I reported the first VPA for Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, and this led to a push for a minimum size limit for a tuna species which was introduced by ICCAT. This work was noted by the then Canadian representative at ICCAT, Ken Lucas, who proposed me for a vacant post at FAO. Once there, I became concerned with fisheries management on a global scale, working for John Gulland, then Chief of the Marine Resources Service.
In 1974 I was responsible for research by my group on invertebrate fisheries in the Canadian Maritimes Provinces. One focus was on developing simple yield models for species such as lobster, where molting divides a cohort into size specific categories and molt frequency slows dramatically with age. The influence of molting (an instantaneous increase in size) on yield-per-recruit, was investigated, and the progressively longer inter-molt periods with age, were shown to be analogous to declines in the high natural mortality rate of other organisms with age. This issue became dominant in my later work: how to convert assessments from annual time intervals to non-uniform or gnomonic time intervals? Another aspect of my invertebrate research I carried over into work on other species, was an interest in spatial issues, which in the 1970’s were rarely treated in marine finfish research.
It is worth noting that my career as a fisheries biologist studying different species and ecosystems in many parts of the world, led to a research approach which differed markedly from most fisheries scientists, because of the lack of a single subject of specialization. I had to tackle a wide variety of problems at FAO, and whatever the problem, I had to make an effort in that direction. Most of the reports listed below were achieved with the kind cooperation of scientists who were better versed in mathematical theory and computer programming than I was, and with more local experience. It is also noteworthy that new approaches tended to come up again after a decade or so, in a different context.
The 1970’s-80’s was a period when fisheries assessments were mainly based on two approaches – age-structured models leading to Virtual Population Analyses, and Production Modelling, where no knowledge of age or size structure was required. Together with research vessel survey results, these were the key methodologies used by most Fisheries Commissions in arriving at country catch or fleet effort/capacity quotas. They required statistically valid data on age or size frequency of catches and an age length key for ‘analytical analyses’ (for those using age compositions of catches as a measure of mortality due to fishing). On the other hand, information on effective fleet size, fishing power and fishing effort exerted were also required for measuring the pressure exerted on the stocks when using production models. Attempts with colleagues (J. Csirke and O. Defeo) to combine aspects of the two methodologies by replacing fishing effort by total mortality rates, allowed an assessment of state of exploitation without the collection of fishing effort – thus avoiding the need to consider changes in fishing power. What was evident however, for production modeling (see my paper with John Gulland and the book by R. Hilborn and C. Walters), was that methodologies assuming that fisheries data could be adjusted for ‘departures from equilibrium’ may give misleading results.
In the 1970’s there was pressure to move in the direction of size frequency analysis, and this often resulted in a neglect of measurements of fleet size and fishing effort (largely the responsibility of the government agency concerned). Most governments had few qualified fisheries workers, nor had they reliable data either on national fleet performance, or that of distant water vessels exploiting national resources. Size frequency analysis was picked up by non-government organizations as a more attractive and easier approach than the conventional one, allowing developing country scientists to make original contributions even without government statistics on fleet performance. The main problems with a purely size-based approach are that the simple packaged software then available gave statistically unreliable results, and the values obtained for population parameters, often biased, were not easily translated into management advice.
The Law of the Sea was an important step forward for international fisheries management. Following this, came UNCED, where FAO was required to draft a background document outlining the issues. I prepared this as an FAO Technical paper, expanding on the questions involved, but implementing subsequent management measures followed slowly. Bringing this issue home to coastal countries was later the task of the Mexican-sponsored ‘Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries’ which measured implementation of a Code based on experience with fishery management. I played a significant role in negotiation of the issues underlying the Articles on Fisheries Management, and cooperated in preparing a booklet on Management Guidelines. Action on the Code was voluntary for participating countries, and although many countries have accepted the Code in principle, criteria used to judge implementation were not always fully understood or laid out. Hence, implementation has been slow in some cases, and depends to a large extent on whether countries have the means to do so. One of the possible methodologies I have promoted is the use of formal questionnaires, which when filled in by industry or government representatives, provide a way of judging implementation.
Almost contemporaneously with meetings on the Code, came a second initiative, this time by the UN, in an attempt to introduce more stringent management measures for offshore fisheries. This initially adopted the classical management target already built into the Law of the Sea, known as ‘The Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)’. The assumption was that aiming for a maximum yield from a fishery would be a safe procedure, but by the time the so-called ‘UN Fish Stock Agreement’ targeted this reference point as a safe procedure, it had begun to be questioned since effort overshoots were frequent and difficult to reverse. Almost inevitably, the fishing effort corresponding to MSY (i.e., fMSY), was overshot in the management process, and a painful period of reduction of quotas was then needed to restore MSY conditions. In the UN Fish Stock Agreement, this required more stringent measures to reduce total fishing effort which was hard to achieve, particularly when more than one national fleet was involved. One approach included in the background paper I prepared for the UN meeting (later published, with some modifications, as an FAO technical report with R. Mahon), was the concept of a Limit Reference Point (LRP) set at a lower fishing mortality rate than fMSY. Another approach was to integrate MSY and LRP criteria into a statistical procedure, which was published later with R. McGarvey, and later updated cooperatively by M. Prager and colleagues.
In Canada and in FAO, I was occupied with both research and policy development, especially in backstopping the work of Fisheries Commissions, developing research projects and proposals, and in project evaluation. With respect to independent fishery commissions, I attended NAFO, IATTC, and ICCAT, and for 15 years was the technical secretary of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean and the Western Central Atlantic Fisheries Commission. I played a role also in Black Sea fishery management bodies, and in the Gulfs Committee of the Indian Ocean Fishery Commission.
One area of emphasis was on fisheries negotiations, both federal-provincial and international boundary issues. With respect to shared stocks, I was part of the Canadian team early on in maritime boundary negotiations with the US over Georges Bank in the 1970’s, and prior to that, was well known to both Canadian and US fisheries industries for my knowledge of Georges Bank shellfish resources (the majority of Canadian publications based on work on Georges Bank used to support the Canadian claim to the Northeast bank came from the scallop investigation). More recently I have advised on shared stock issues for the Lesser Antilles countries, the Government of Malta, and Mediterranean and Black Sea countries. I later presented a broad review of shared stock issues at a conference in Australia.
In FAO I took on a number of global initiatives on environmental issues, and drafted and backstopped a large number of fishery-related projects funded by UNDP and other agencies. Much of my experience was in practical applications of population dynamics, using empirical information where conventional data sources were inadequate. With respect to the environment, a technical document on marine living resources was prepared for the UNCED process in negotiating Agenda 21 for the Oceans. Environmental emphases of this work were reviews of the effects of nutrient runoff on fisheries of coastal and inland seas. This focus on the dominant processes governing fishery productivity and coastal eutrophication was continued in papers issued in cooperation with the oceanographer, A. Bakun. On the issue of marine resource negotiations, a handbook specifying appropriate criteria for distant water vessels fishing shared stocks in national waters of developing countries was co-authored by a team of international experts and published by the US WWF.
Action Plans were developed for the Black Sea and Mediterranean environments, and management proposals and modeling approaches were put forward for the Black Sea in cooperation with Russian colleagues for the Black Sea pelagic ecosystem. One model documented the effects of the Mnemiopsis (jellyfish) invasion on the fisheries of that inland sea. In 2001-2 I was advisor to CITES and associated NGO’s on the conservation of sturgeon stocks of the Danube/Black Sea. Working with Black Sea experts, a preliminary migration model for river Danube sturgeon management was proposed, and a suggestion made for a new reporting scheme to reduce illegal fishing and marketing.
Published biennial reviews by my FAO group were initiated by John Gulland, and monitored apparent changes in composition of world marine harvests, and these showed that not only top-down trophc effects of fisheries are responsible. In particular, Atlantic fisheries have been subject to drastic overharvesting where top down trophic interactions could not have been the sole hypothesis responsible. In fact gross overfishing and changes in environmental conditions affecting stock productivity were relevant factors on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1996, my chronologically-first 'Peter Larkin Memorial Lecture' was entitled: "Fisheries management in the 21st Century: will new paradigms apply?" It spelled out several likely scenarios for world fisheries development in the near future. Another paper entitled: ‘Applications of ecology to sustainable fisheries management: problems and perspectives’ was presented to the British Ecological Society at the Royal Society London, 14-Feb 2000. A keynote address at the IATTC Symposium on World Tuna Fisheries, Costa Rica, June 2000, was on the subject of responsible fisheries for tunas. A review of global experience and strategies for rebuilding overexploited marine fish stocks was prepared for the Irish Government, and in September 2003 was given as a keynote invited lecture at ICES.
The fisheries of the Mediterranean Sea require an approach to fishery management that differs from the classical Beverton and Holt approach used in the North Atlantic. It has taken a decade or more of emphasis and a number of presentations and publications, before this new approach seems accepted for demersal fisheries in the Mediterranean, and there is even evidence that some of its implications are being taken into account in North Atlantic fishery management. The two issues that are of key importance here in managing demersal trawl fisheries, are that an emphasis on mesh size regulations does not reduce heavy discards, and markets where small whole fishes have been consumed for generations provides high prices per kilo for small fishes. This affects bioeconomic optima calculated with Juan Carlos Seijo. It was also demonstrated that mesh selection does not automatically protects escapees: considerable work has now been done in various laboratories showing the substantial indirect mortality occuring on trawl escapees.
Assessments of fisheries for juveniles has been a recent focus, and these must be assessed assuming a higher (but steeply declining) natural mortality rate at age, and conserving larger mature fish for a self-sustaining population is now emphasized as the top priority. In the Mediterranean; this strategy will be assisted by closing extensive rocky bottom areas or refugia on the edge of the narrow Mediterranean shelf. Here, some protection from trawlers is offered if a closure to trawling is established. This leads to the suggestion that if refugia exist where spawners are abundant, their establishment should be a top priority for protection. Harvests of juveniles, while they need to be controlled at moderate levels, cannot be readily abandoned.