The Current Status of the Stock and Fishery of the Saffron Cod, Eleginus gracilis (Tilesius, 1810), in the Western Bering Sea

Some biological features, the status of stock, and the fisheries of saffron cod are characterized on the basis of results of bottom trawl surveys and commercial catches in 2003–2023. In the southwestern Bering Sea, the total saffron cod stock in 2021 was 100 400 t; in the northwestern part in 2022, it was 13 500 t; off the Chukchi Peninsula coast (northern Gulf of Anadyr) in 2017 it was 140 t. According to model-based estimations, the total saffron cod stock in the southwestern Bering Sea in 2023 was 114 000 t and in the northwestern part, as estimated by the direct survey method, 20 000 t. In the study period, the average saffron cod catches in the southwestern and northwestern Bering Sea were, respectively, 6900 and 900 t. There is no saffron cod fishery in the northern Gulf of Anadyr (Chukchi zone).