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Issue Aquat. Living Resour. Volume 22, Number 2, April-June 2009 Fish Stock Assessments Using Surveys and Indicators Page(s) 207 - 216 DOI 10.1051/alr/2009003 Published online 17 June 2009

Aquat. Living Resour. 22 (2009) 207-216
DOI: 10.1051/alr/2009003

A review of fishery-independent assessment models, and initial evaluation based on simulated data

Benoit Mesnil¹, John Cotter², Rob J. Fryer³, Coby L. Needle³ and Verena M. Trenkel<sup>1

1</sup>  Ifremer, Département EMH, BP 21105, 44311 Nantes Cedex 3, France
²  CEFAS Lowestoft Laboratory, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 0HT, UK
³  FRS Marine Laboratory, PO Box 101, Victoria Road, Aberdeen AB11 9DB, UK

Received 15 May 2008; Accepted 8 September 2008 ; Published online 17 June 2009.

Abstract - Large uncertainties in catch data (officially-reported landings and discards) are undermining the ability of scientific organisations to provide valid management advice based on the conventional approach of analytical stock assessments. There is thus an urgent need to consider alternative tools that do not depend on long series of precise age-structured catch data. This paper presents four fishery-independent assessment models developed under the EU project FISBOAT (Fishery Independent Survey Based Operational Assessment Tools). It also reports on rudimentary tests based on simulated data, using the same data sets and protocol as an evaluation study conducted by the US National Research Council in 1997. The survey-based assessment models at hand are able to reliably capture the major signal in biomass and recruitment, although they smooth out transient changes. However, they cannot provide absolute abundance estimates, only relative values on an arbitrary scale. The survey-based approaches could provide more rapid updates of the state of stocks than catch-based methods.

Key words: Fish stock assessment / Catch-free models / Fishery-independent assessment methods (F-I methods) / Survey indices

Corresponding author: Benoit.Mesnil@ifremer.fr

© EDP Sciences, IFREMER, IRD 2009

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