Research Document - 1999/069

Assessment of the Banquereau Bank Artic Surfclam, 1999.

By D. Roddick and S.J. Smith

Abstract

The Banquereau Bank fishery for Arctic surfclams has grown from landings of 29 t in 1986, to 24,951 t in 1998. The three vessels participating in this fishery exploit both Banquereau and Grand Bank. The fishery is managed with limited entry and a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) divided into Enterprise Allocations (EA's), but the TAC is based on sparse survey data from the early 1980's. Concerns for the future of this fishery led Industry to propose supplying three years of vessel time for a stock assessment survey of Banquereau and Grand Banks, if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans would design and carry out the biological assessment. The main survey was completed in 1996, and the opportunity to conduct additional stations was taken during the summer of 1997.

The combining of different year's data presented both opportunities to refine the assessment, and problems with how to combine data from the two different surveys.

The initial survey design, based on stratification from a RoxAnn survey, was not successful in delimiting areas of high and low abundance on Banquereau Bank. It could discriminate bottom that was too hard or soft to be suitable for surfclams, but as Banquereau Bank is one large sandbank it was not able to refine the density of surfclams on any finer scale. Analysis of logbook and observer data show that CPUE has started to decline as the vessels are fishing lower density areas and returning to some areas previously fished. The ability of the present fleet to keep moving around and leaving fished areas alone for the length of time needed for the area to recover will be dependent on the extent of areas with commercially viable catch rates both on Banquereau and on Grand Bank where they also fish. The use of rotational fishing areas is examined in light of the survey results.

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