2015 Assessment of the Alaska Plaice Stock in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
February 09, 2015
Starting in 2014, it was proposed that the Alaska plaice stock assessment was a candidate for full stock assessments in even years on a biennial basis in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands region. For 2015 an executive summary is prepared to provide management quantities and recommendations for the 2016 fishing season, even though a full Bering Sea shelf survey was conducted. Alaska plaice are managed as a Tier 3 stock using a statistical age-structured model as the primary assessment tool.
The assessment model is not re-run for this update but instead, a projection model is run with updated catch information. This projection model run incorporates the most recent catch and provides estimates of 2016 and 2017 ABC and OFL without re-estimating the stock assessment model parameters or biological reference points. A full stock assessment document with updated assessment results is planned for the 2016 SAFE report.