Abstract: Currently, the East China Sea region is implementing the national "Blue Granary" strategic mission, which inevitably involves the scaling and high-quality development of marine ranching to gradually replace various highly destructive traditional fishing practices in near and offshore areas. However, conservation-oriented marine ranching is insufficient to accommodate the labor space required for the restructuring and transformation of the fisheries industry. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize and adjust the attributes of marine ranching in the East China Sea region and expand and enhance its functions. One of the key steps in this process is the selection and construction of a target species system for marine ranching in the East China Sea region. To optimize the theoretical framework for marine ranching construction in the East China Sea region and enhance the targeted management efforts, this study takes the marine ranching in the northern Zhoushan island reef area as an example and employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to comprehensively screen target species for marine ranching in this area. A hierarchical structure model was constructed, encompassing five rule layers: ecosystem status, population regulation function, resource utilization paradigm, economic contribution intensity, and social impact capability, along with 15 specific indices such as energy flow contribution and ecological niche width. Based on this model, the weights of the rule layers and index layers were determined through expert scoring. Representative fishery resource species in the study area were preliminarily screened based on resource abundance and economic value. A total of 39 core target species for marine ranching were identified, including fish such as S. marmoratus and L. maculatus, crabs like P. trituberculatus and C. japonica, cephalopods represented by S. maindroni and O. vulgaris, and shellfish including M. unguiculatus and R. venosa. Based on this, utilization strategies for core target species were refined, establishing a harvesting system centered on sea angling supplemented by gathering and net fishing. This identified sea angling target species like S. marmoratus and C. myriaster, gathering target species like R. venosa and A. japonica, and net fishing target species like P. argenteus and P. trituberculatus..The establishment of a target species selection system for marine ranching in the northern island reef waters of Zhoushan clarifies the specific objects and priority levels for marine ranch resource production in this area. It identifies breakthrough strategies for developing marine ranches in the island reef waters of the East China Sea, providing practical guidance for the development of marine ranches and fisheries management in the region.