SEDAR 73 RED SNAPPER ASSESSMENT PROJECT REVIEW

The Committee reviewed the Operational Assessment for Red Snapper prepared through SEDAR 73 and accepted the assessment as best scientific information available at their April 2021 meeting. The base assessment suggested that the stock was overfished and overfishing was occurring in the terminal year of the assessment (2019). The Committee requested additional information prior to recommending catch levels. Specifically, the Committee requested a presentation on usage rates of descending devices when releasing Red Snapper and description of the methods used in the new mixed forecasting method for ABC-setting.

The usage rates for descending devices when releasing Red Snapper are likely to change due to the 2020 implementation of a requirement to have descending devices on-board when harvesting or possessing species in the Snapper Grouper complex when fishing in federal waters. A working paper (SEDAR 73 WP 15, Attachments 3 and 4) was developed to estimate usage rate of descending device in SEDAR 73 and the SEDAR 73 Panel approved the estimates in the four different blocks.

The mixed forecasting method for ABC-setting was a new approach for projections presented to the Committee in April (Attachments 5 and 6). The Committee requested additional information because the methodology was not provided before the meeting for review. The mixed approach uses the current assessment conditions to compute the F rebuild and a second iterative step to increase landings F based on the reduction in discard F associated with descending device usage. The mixed approach has similar trajectories of SSB and total removals but shifts some removals associated with discards to landed catch.

The Committee also discussed different recruitment scenarios as requested by the Council during the March 2021 meeting. The Committee indicated it was not comfortable using the most recent high recruitment values (last 6 years) as the high recruitment might not continue into the future. The Council requested a recruitment option of the last 10 years be considered for use in setting fishing level recommendations. The Council selected a 10-year period because this timeframe has been used in other assessments in the Southeast US and it does not assume that changes in climate has been static over the past 60 years. Therefore, the more recent 10-year period might better represent future conditions over the short-term (10 years, rebuilding target year is 2044).

The Council also wishes to consider alternative reference points for Red Snapper and requested projection runs for several different scenarios of SPR including Fmax, F20%, F25%, F30%, and F40%. Instead of running full projections for all these scenarios and combinations, a request was made to describe the probability of overfishing and underfishing associated with different SPR levels to aid the Council's discussion of an appropriate FMSY proxy for Red Snapper. A similar analysis was conducted for the SSC based on the results of SEDAR 41 (Red Snapper, provided in background material folder).