"Greenland Turbot"

Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) is a Pleuronectidae (right eyed) flatfish that has a circumpolar distribution inhabiting the North Atlantic, Arctic and North Pacific Oceans.

Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) is a Pleuronectidae (right eyed) flatfish that has a circumpolar distribution inhabiting the North Atlantic, Arctic and North Pacific Oceans.

Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) is a Pleuronectidae (right eyed) flatfish that has a circumpolar distribution inhabiting the North Atlantic, Arctic and North Pacific Oceans.

Greenland turbot (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) is a Pleuronectidae (right eyed) flatfish that has a circumpolar distribution inhabiting the North Atlantic, Arctic and North Pacific Oceans.

New findings expand our understanding of a commercially valuable but little-studied Alaska fish population.

Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Greenland turbot is assessed biennially according to the stock assessment prioritization schedule.

Greenland turbot have life history characteristics that complicate assessment surveys in the Eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region. There continues to be issues in rectifying inconsistencies between the NMFS Shelf surveys and NMFS Slope surveys.

The Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) report summarizes the best available scientific information concerning the past, present, and possible future condition of the stocks, marine ecosystems, and fisheries that are managed under Federal regulation. It provides information to the Councils for determining annual harvest levels from each stock, documenting significant trends or changes in the resource, marine ecosystems, and fishery over time, and assessing the relative success of existing state and Federal fishery management programs. For the FMP for the Groundfish Fishery of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) Area, the SAFE report is published in three sections: a “Stock Assessment” section, which comprises the bulk of this document, and “Economic Status of Groundfish Fisheries off Alaska” (i.e., the “Economic SAFE report”) and “Ecosystem Considerations” sections, which are bound separately.

Greenland turbot have life history characteristics that complicate assessment surveys in the Eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region. There continues to be issues in rectifying inconsistencies between the NMFS Shelf surveys and NMFS Slope surveys.

Analyses of new data (namely size and age composition data for 2013 – 2015) made available in September 2015 exacerbated a data conflict with the NMFS EBS Shelf and Slope trawl surveys necessitating unexpected model configuration changes to resolve what are clear structural misspecifications. The EBS shelf survey provides a reasonable index of young fish but as they age, they clearly exit the survey area. The EBS slope survey provides an index of adult fish and typically occurs every other year (except that the 2014 survey was dropped so the most recent data is from 2012). Initial runs of the 2014 Model with the new data (Model 14.0) suggested that recent high recruitment estimates (2007-2010) are closer to average, likely reflecting a change in the availability of these fish to the Shelf survey gear. Re-weighting shelf and slope survey composition data to better account for shifts in distribution relative to survey gear appears to improve model diagnostics while acknowledging that Greenland turbot are distributed to a large degree outside the survey areas and are affected by thermal conditions (shifting further north in warmer years in the EBS).