Research Document - 2004/098

Scientific advice for input to the Allowable Harm Assessment for Bocaccio

By Stanley, R., P. Starr.

Abstract

The B.C. population of bocaccio (Sebastes paucispinis) may be listed as “Threatened” under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. If this occurs, Fisheries and Oceans, Canada will follow the SARA Permitting Framework and develop an Allowable Harm Analysis (AHA) for management of this population. In anticipation of this requirement, we have summarized the available scientific information on the bocaccio population as it relates to development of the AHA.

The organization of this document follows from the technical guidelines recommended for the National Assessment Process meeting that was conducted October 25-29, 2004 in Halifax. This summary is largely derived from analyses presented in two previous CSAS Research Documents on bocaccio. Analysis of the current status of bocaccio is limited to information on trends in relative abundance and distribution. The available data indicate that bocaccio continue to be widespread over their habitat and stable in abundance since the mid-1990’s. Over the longer term, the population may have declined to about 25-100% of the abundance observed in the latter half of the 1970’s, the earliest point in the available time series. Rebuilding from the current status depends on maintaining sufficient spawning biomass to take advantage of positive recruitment conditions.

The principal current threat to the population is catch from commercial fishing with most (90%) of the current annual catches of 300-330 t coming from the bottom trawl fishery. The remaining 10% comes from midwater trawling and the hook-and-line sector. Possible precautionary approaches could consider, as a first step, the capping of catches at the current levels of 300-330 t. If a more aggressive strategy is deemed appropriate, catches could be reduced through use of disincentives such as placing caps on the individual vessel/license quotas (IVQ’s) and/or introducing fleet wide TAC’s for bocaccio. Trawl fishers have already demonstrated the capacity to significantly reduce bycatch of this minor species in response to voluntary regulatory changes, including surrendering any catch of bocaccio at dockside.

While it is reasonable to argue that a reduction in catch may increase the likelihood or speed of the return to population levels of the 1970’s, there are insufficient data to provide an analytic basis for predicting how much a given catch reduction will influence the likelihood or rate.

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