Benchmark Stock Assessment for the Main Hawaiian Islands Deep 7 Bottomfish Complex in 2024 With Catch Projections Through 2029
March 04, 2024
Stock projections conducted for 2025–2029 for a range of hypothetical five year catches, and the corresponding risk of overfishing.
The Hawaiʻi Deep 7 bottomfish complex is a U.S. fishery management unit consisting of six deep-water snapper species and a single grouper species that inhabit waters of the Hawaiian Archipelago. All bottomfish fishing currently takes place in the main Hawaiian Islands zone due to the closure of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands under Proclamation 8031. Stock assessments conducted since 2011 have assessed the Deep 7 bottomfish complex within the MHI zone.
A benchmark stock assessment of the main Hawaiian Islands Deep 7 bottomfish complex was conducted in 2023 and finalized in 2024. Since this is a benchmark assessment, many improvements were incorporated and all components of the assessment were reevaluated. Most of the improvements incorporated were recommended by the Western Pacific Stock Assessment Review (WPSAR) panelevaluations of the 2018 and 2021 assessments. Some significant changes include the re-examination of previously used reporting ratios for determining non-commercial catch, refining data filtering procedures and improving the generation of abundance indices (i.e., the standardized fishery-dependent CPUE index, fishery-independent index, and single-species ‘ōpakapaka CPUE index), updating the software for the assessment model, exploring new parameterizations of the production function, and reevaluating prior distributions based on the most recent life-history information available for Deep 7 species.
The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service uses the NOAA Stock Assessment Report NMFS-PIFSC series to disseminate scientific and technical information that has been scientifically reviewed and edited. Documents within this series reflect sound professional work and may be referenced in the formal scientific and technical literature.
Syslo J, Oshima M, Ma H, Ducharme-Barth N, Nadon M, Carvalho F 2024. Benchmark stock assessment for the main Hawaiian Islands Deep 7 bottomfish complex in 2024 with catch projections through 2029 U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NOAA-TM-NMFS-PIFSC-157, 178 p.
https://doi.org/10.25923/5ssg-8d54