Natural Mortality and Size Structure of Introduced Blue Catfish in Virginia Tidal Rivers
SEAFWA Journal Volume 5, March 2018
In the 1970s and 1980s, blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) were introduced to the tidal rivers of Virginia. Current abundances and uncertainty about population characteristics of blue catfish generated concern for other economically important and imperiled species. We estimated natural mortality and size structure of blue catfish for four tidal river systems (i.e., James, Mattaponi, Pamunkey and Rappahannock). Using common empirical estimators with pooled data from the period 2002-2016, we calculated five estimates of natural mortality. Proportional size distributions were used to examine...
