REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH ... - Iccat

ICCAT REPORT 2008-2009 (I)9. Report of inter-sessional meetingsThat Committee considered that only reports of meetings that were not directly related to the stock assessmentsshould be presented and, therefore, their results are not included and presented in the Executive Summaries.Following this criteria, summaries of the following meetings were presented:9.1 Working Group on Stock Assessment MethodsThe Ad Hoc Working Group on Stock Assessment Methods met February 18 to 22, 2008, in Madrid, to addresstwo objectives: (1) To assess fishing capacity by species, country and gear, as requested by the Commission'sWorking Group on Capacity, and (2) to review ongoing activities related to quality control procedures for stockassessments. In terms of capacity, the group noted that the information available in the ICCAT Task II databaseand Vessel Records was insufficient to make accurate and detailed analyses as requested by the Commission’sWorking Group.Nevertheless, the group was able to obtain some estimates by gear, particularly for longline effort, tropical andtemperate baitboats, and tropical purse seine. The Group also recommended that the Commission adopt preciseterminology regarding the term "capacity". In terms of quality control procedures, the Group noted that slowprogress was being made in the software catalog and in the production of a manual on CPUE standardizationpractices, and recommended that a future meeting be held exclusively to address CPUE-related issues.A number of specific research recommendations derived from the Workshop are given in Section 14 of thisReport.Document SCRS/2008/027 contains the detailed report of the meeting.9.2 Inter-sessional Meeting of Mediterranean SwordfishThe meeting was held in Madrid, Spain, February 25 to 29, 2008. The objective of the meeting was to conductadditional research on technical measures and time-area closures which could optimize protections of juvenileMediterranean swordfish and improve fisheries exploitation patterns. The Group focused on time-area closuresand evaluated a range of 24 scenarios that included fishery closures of different duration in differentMediterranean areas.Projections realized through a series of simulations demonstrated that gains in terms of landings and SSB fromshort fishery closures (e.g. one month) will be negligible. Relatively long (over three months) Mediterraneanwideclosures during the peak recruitment period would result in important long-term SSB gains, but the ICCATconvention objectives concerning SSB, can only be met with Mediterranean-wide drastic closures in the last twoquarters of the year (i.e. six months). Such drastic closures, however, would result in short-term decreases inlandings.The detailed report of the meeting is included as document SCRS/2008/011.9.3 Inter-sessional Meeting of the Sub-Committee on EcosystemsThe meeting was held in Madrid, Spain, March 10 to 14, 2008. Substantial work was conducted regarding theongoing seabird assessment. An updated longline fishing effort database (EFFDIS) was provided by theSecretariat, to be used in this assessment. Several documents were presented that allowed clarification on how toperform the analyses regarding the different stages of the seabird assessment, specially the overlap betweenfishing effort and at sea seabird distribution, as well as the estimation of the number of seabirds caught inICCAT fisheries and the effect on seabird populations. It was also pointed out that unless far more data becomeavailable, the assessment might have to be based on important assumptions about catch rates in different fleets,time periods and areas. The group also produced a questionnaire on observer programs with the aim of creatingan observer program metadatabase, as well as seabird awareness materials with general information about theseabird by-catch issues and some mitigation measures.Document SCRS/2008/012 contains the detailed report of the meeting.The Committee considered that the results of the analyses on the impact of the tuna and tuna-like fisheries on theseabird stocks, which the Sub-Committee is carrying out, should be contemplated in a global framework that152