Proceedings 2015/051

Proceedings of the Pacific regional peer review on Coastwide Assessment of Arrowtooth Flounder (Atheresthes stomias) in 2014 and recommendations for 2015; May 12-13, 2015

Chairperson and Editor: Rowan Haigh

Summary

These Proceedings summarize the relevant discussions and key conclusions that resulted from a Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) Regional Peer Review (RPR) meeting on May 12-13, 2015 at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia (BC).

Arrowtooth Flounder (Atheresthes stomias) is a significant species within the groundfish trawl fishery. Since 2006 the fishery has been subject to a coastwide trawl Total Allowable Catch of 15 000 mt. Arrowtooth Flounder is also a minor component of the groundfish hook and line fisheries, and subject to vessel trip limits. The combined hook and line fisheries catch in 2013 was estimated to be 73 mt. Arrowtooth Flounder is the second most frequently released species in the Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) hook and line fishery (est. 12 mt) and consequently was identified as a component of the non-target catch in the Marine Stewardship Council certification process for the Pacific Halibut fishery. The last official assessment of Arrowtooth Flounder was published in 2001 (Fargo and Starr 2001) and provided analyses of biological, survey, commercial catch and catch-per-unit effort data. These proceedings summarize the discussions from the RPR process that reviewed the first model-based assessment ever performed for the BC coastwide stock of Arrowtooth Flounder.

Meeting participants included representatives of DFO Science, DFO Fisheries Management, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA, USA), the Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society, the Commercial Industry Caucus (trawl), the BC Trawl Fishery, the Sport Fishery Advisory Board, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Centre for Science Advice – Pacific (CSAP).

The conclusions and advice resulting from this review will be provided in the form of a Research Document and a Science Advisory Report providing advice from Science to managers and other clients. These documents will be publicly available on the DFO’s CSAS website.

Complete document (PDF, 665 KB)

Accessibility Notice

This document is available in PDF format. If the document is not accessible to you, please contact the Secretariat to obtain another appropriate format, such as regular print, large print, Braille or audio version.