Fish Stock - Straddling Stock

Straddling Stock

The United Nations defines straddling stocks as "stocks of fish such as pollock, which migrate between, or occur in both, the economic exclusion zone (EEZ) of one or more states and the high seas". Sovereign responsibility must be worked out in collaboration with neighbouring coastal states and fishing entities. Usually this is done through the medium of an intergovernmental regional organisation set up for the purpose of coordinating the management of that stock.

Straddling stocks are usually pelagic, rather than demersal. Demersal species move less than pelagic species, since they tend to relate to bottom topography. Pelagic species are more mobile, their movements influenced by ocean temperatures and the availability of zooplankton as food. Example pelagic fish are capelin, herring, whiting, mackerel and redfish, There are, however, a few demersal species that are straddling, such as the Greenland halibut migrates in feeding/spawning migrations to Greenland in the west and to the Faeroes in the east.

Straddling stock can be compared with transboundary stock. Straddling stock range both within an EEZ as well as in the high seas. Transboundary stock range in the EEZs of at least two countries. A stock can be both transboundary and straddling.