Center for Independent Experts Summary Report for the 2006 Alaska Rockfish Review
September 19, 2018
This report presents the summary views of Drs. Patrick Cordue, Cynthia Jones, and Robert Mohn on each of three terms of reference, as the reviewers were required to generate under the review statement of work. As such, the report only collates the summary views to generate a concise set of summaries, and it does not otherwise alter the reviewers’ text. For a more detailed discussion on each term, the reader should refer to the reviewers’ full reports.
A CIE Review Panel considered the current harvest strategies and stock assessment methods for Alaskan rockfish stocks from June 19-22, 2006 at Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA. The motivation for the review was the concern of some stakeholders that rockfish harvest strategies are “too aggressive”. The same tier system and general harvest strategy is applied to all groundfish, including rockfish. For this reason many of my conclusions, with regard to harvest strategies, apply to groundfish stocks in general.
The rockfish team did an excellent job of presenting a wide-array of relevant information. I was impressed by many aspects of the current research programmes, stock assessment methods, and harvest strategies. I find the apparent reason for the review understandable but disappointing. The current rockfish harvest strategies are very conservative and proposals to move to more extreme conservatism are most unfortunate.