Kristin Privitera-Johnson1
1SAFS
January 24, 2017 3:30 (PST): FSH 203
Evaluating Uncertainties in Historical Groundfish Landing for Washington Coastal Commercial Fisheries
Fishery removal of fish population, catch, is important information used in conducting stock assessments. However, groundfish, especially rockfish, landings were recorded in broad market categories historically. Partitioning landings into single species category has relied on analysts, which caused the landing history changes from assessment to assessment depending on assumptions made by the analysts. This has increased uncertainty among assessments. In 2008, a major effort to reconstruct historical landings was initiated in response to the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s call to compile the best estimates of catch history early in the development of Pacific Coast groundfish fisheries. For Washington state, databases have been developed for raw landings, historical trawl logbooks and species composition data. As part of the whole catch reconstruction project, this work explores a method for quantifying uncertainties in the catch estimates based on species composition data collected by department staff since the early 1960’s.