2018 Assessment Of The Other Flatfish Stock Complex In The Bering Sea And Aleutian Islands
January 29, 2019
Species of the BSAI Other Flatfish complex are managed on a four-year assessment cycle with the last full assessment conducted in 2015. For 2018 a partial assessment is completed. The partial assessment summary of the 2018 recommended ABCs and OFLs (in bold) relative to the 2017 recommendations for Other flatfish in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI).
Surveys were conducted on the Bering Sea shelf and the Aleutian Islands in 2018 and biomass estimates were updated for species of the “Other Flatfish” management category for this partial assessment according to the species groupings by natural mortality rate as detailed in the 2015 assessment (Wilderbuer and Nichol 2015). The random effects model was fit to the new survey estimates (and time-series) and resulted in an ABC and OFL increase of 24% over 2017. The 2018 values were rolled-over from the previous year (ie. the 2017 recommended ABC and OFL) and did not include a random effects model estimate of biomass. The Random Effects model estimates indicate that the Other Flatfish species group is at a high level relative to the time series of abundance estimates and is lightly exploited.