Giant rockfish lived to senior status

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A commercial fishing boat has pulled up what could have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska – a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.

The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise, a 275-foot, Seattle-based vessel trawling for pollock at 2,100 feet. On one drag, the ship’s big net pulled up an estimated 75 tons of pollock plus 10 bright-orange rockfish.

The crew immediately recognized the fish as being unusually big for a rockfish. After letting school kids see it at his son’s show-and-tell session, boat manager Michael Myers notified federal researchers.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle “were like 9-year-olds on Christmas morning,” Myers said. “They were giddy.”

Researchers measured, photographed and documented the fish. They removed an ear bone, the otolith, which contains growth rings similar to rings on the trunks of trees.

They estimate the rockfish was 90 to 115 years old.

A British Columbia study put the maximum age at 120 years. A Gulf of Alaska study placed the maximum age at 157 years, Spencer said.

Scientists said the specimen, which had ovaries full of developing embryos, is not the biggest on record. The book “Fishes of Alaska” says a 47-inch shortraker rockfish was recorded.