Terms of Reference

Providing Science Advice to management in the interim years for multi-year stock assessments (Technical Expertise on Stock Assessments)

National Peer Review - National Capital Region

March 10-12, 2015
Ottawa, ON

Chairpersons: Joanne Morgan and Brian Lester

Context

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is implementing the multi-year approach to fisheries stock assessments and management.  This is intended to provide stability and predictability for fishers and to reduce the frequency of peer reviewed stock assessment meetings and subsequent fisheries management decision-making processes. The Department’s early experience with this broader implementation of multi-year assessments has highlighted the need for clear guidelines on when and what kind of advice is required for the interim years between full stock assessments.

The DFO Technical Expertise in Stock Assessment (TESA) program was created in 2008 to help rebuild capacity in fish stock assessment and to develop analytical approaches. The TESA program will use this National Peer Review to fulfill its mandate to coordinate an annual National Stock Assessment Methods meeting.

Proposed Approach

Two WebEx meetings will be used to advance discussions on the guidance document before a face-to-face meeting in March 2015. Regional experience with multi-year advice will be presented at the first Webex meeting, including how multi-year assessments are currently implemented for key commercial stocks in each region. Detailed case studies will not be presented, but examples of processes that worked well will be provided, as well as examples that highlight key issues.

A second WebEx meeting will focus on further exploring how different Regions and/or fisheries handle interim advice for multi-year fisheries and work towards an outline of topics for the meeting in Ottawa in March. This second WebEx will include a larger group of stock assessment biologists that have been identified as having experience with interim advice for multi-year stock assessments. Guidance will be drafted based on WebEx discussion, and the draft guidance will be presented, reviewed and further developed at the face to face meeting in Ottawa in March.

Objectives

The meeting aims to provide guidance based, in part, on regional experience in undertaking stock assessments. Further, various approaches within and external to DFO will be reviewed and new approaches could potentially be developed. A key objective of the meeting is to produce guidelines or best practices to be used in future stock assessments. This document could become the national standard for stock assessments providing consistency to clients of DFO Science within and outside of the Department.

It will be particularly important to ensure that approaches to interim-year advice are relevant and useable by clients (i.e., fisheries managers) in planning and engaging industry on multi-year harvest plans. The guidance will be focussed on the process required, as opposed to the scientific methodologies applied, and will aim to strike a balance between clear guidance and considerations that could leave some room for flexibility given the range of situations for different stocks and fisheries.

Questions to help orient discussion towards useful products include but are not limited to:

• Does science recommend providing an update in the interim years? Given the goal of the multi-year assessments is to reduce workload, are there conditions that result in no provision of advice?
• What approaches exist to provide advice that allows managers to adjust the total allowable catch (TAC) in interim years based on changes in an index in the interim years? Updated advice could depend on available data, analytical assessment methods, and whether there is fishery independent and/or catch data available during the interim period.
• What conditions would trigger new advice and how do these triggers differ with type of assessment (analytical vs survey based, species life-history, etc.). i.e. what are recommended interim year indicators and how to determine if the stock is sufficiently outside the bounds of expectation to warrant changes to the interim year management plan?
• To what extent and how should the interim plan be laid out at the full assessment meeting?
• Whether and how to set triggers for interim new advice or a new assessment, and would there be set times for interim “checks” to make sure triggers haven’t been reached?
• How should the interim advice be reported (e.g. a Science Response).

Expected Publications

• Proceedings
• Science Advisory Report

Participation

• DFO – Ecosystems and Oceans Science sector
• DFO – Ecosystems and Fisheries Management sectors
• Other invited experts