Queen Charlotte Islands herring carrying capacity and sustainable harvest rates in different climate regimes.
Recruitment accounts for most of the stock productivity.
The stock-recruitment curve suggests that QCI herring have been most productive when the average spawning stock biomass has been about 11 thousand t. Since 1950, the average carrying capacity of the stock appears to have been about 46 to 49 thousand t. The 1951 and 1977 year-classes were extraordinarly large. Previous studies have found that recruitment to the QCI herring stock is correlated with several environmental variables.