2019 Assessment of the Pacific Ocean Perch Stock in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands

In 2005, BSAI rockfish were moved to a biennial assessment schedule with full assessments in even years to coincide with the occurrence of trawl surveys in the Aleutian Islands (AI) and the eastern Bering Sea (EBS) slope. In 2017, the scheduled frequency for some stock assessments was changed in response to the National Stock Assessment Prioritization effort, with Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Pacific ocean perch maintaining its existing schedule. 

A partial assessment is conducted this year by revising the recent catch data and re-running the projection model using the results from the previous full assessment as a starting point. Therefore, this update does not incorporate any changes to the 2018 assessment methodology, but does update the catch estimates for 2018–2020 and provides an estimated catch for 2021. The partial assessment also includes estimates of catch/biomass (i.e., exploitation rates), using estimated total biomass from the 2018 assessment and updated projection model.