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Seasonal Catches, Size and Meristic Data for Sprat, Sprattus Sprattus, in the Severn Estuary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

I. C. Potter  and
P. N. Claridge
I. C. Potter
Affiliation:
School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150
P. N. Claridge
Affiliation:
N.E.R.C. Institute for Marine Environmental Research, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth PLi 3DH
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Extract

While the sprat, Sprattus sprattus (L.), may live for up to a total of six years, at the end of which time the total length can exceed 150 mm, the fishery in British waters is based primarily on the second, third and fourth year classes (Robertson, 1936, 1938; De Silva, 1973). Historically, the sprat was a major contributor to the fishery of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary (Matthews, 1933; Lloyd, 1942). Although this fishery has declined during recent decades, the sprat has remained an important component of the teleost fauna of the region. This point is illustrated by the observation that S. sprattus was by far the most abundant of all teleosts in plankton samples taken throughout the Bristol Channel between the spring and autumn of 1974 (Russell, 1980). While length–frequency data were provided by Russell (1980) for these recently spawned sprat and there is comparable information for those sprat which form the basis of the commercial fishery in the Bristol Channel (Lloyd, 1942), no such data are available for those members of the population which are known sometimes to enter the Severn Estuary in considerable numbers (Lloyd, 1941).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , August 1985 , pp. 667 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1985

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