louis braillelaan 80 working group ii meeting wgii 25.04.2017.pdf · overview of the document....

of 18 Pelagic Advisory Council-

Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Pelagic AC

Louis Braillelaan 80 2719 EK Zoetermeer

The Netherlands Phone: +31 (0)63 375 6324

E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pelagic-ac.org

Participants

1 Sean O´Donoghue, chairman Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation 2 Andrew Campbell Marine Institute Ireland 3 Anne Mette Bæk Jespersen EU Fishmeal 4 Claus Reedtz-Sparrevohn Danish Pelagic Producers Organisation 5 Christian Bisgaard SARIA 6 Christine Absil Seas at Risk 7 Edward Farrell University College Dublin 8 Eric Roeleveld Jaczon 9 Fredrik Lindberg Swedish Fishermen’s Federation 10 Esben Sverdrup-Jensen Danish Pelagic Producers Organisation 11 Gerard van Balsfoort Pelagic Freezer Trawler Association 12 Irene Kingma Dutch Elasmobranch Society 13 Jérôme Jourdain Union des armateurs a la pêche de France 14 Jesper Juul Laarsen Danmarks Fiskeriforening 15 Jesper Raakjær Aalborg University 16 John Ward Irish Fish PO 17 José Beltran OPLUGO 18 Justyna Zajchowska The Pew Charitable Trusts 19 Ken Whelan Atlantic Salmon Trust 20 Lesley Duthie North Sea Women’s Network 21 Line Groth-Rasmussen European Commission- DG MARE 22 Mads Larsson AIPCE 23 Marco van Riel Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs 24 Martin Pastoors Pelagic Freezer Trawler Association 25 Michael Cavanagh Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation 26 Miren Garmendia Federacion de Cofradias de Pescadores Guipuzcoa 27 Nicolas Michelet CNPMEM 28 Patrick Murphy Irish South & West PO 29 Rob Pronk W van der Zwan 30 Romain Soisson From Nord Producers Organisation 31 Sheila O’Neill Department of Agriculure, Food & Marine, Ireland 32 Stefan Kalogirou Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management 33 Stella Nemecky WWF 34 Steven Mackinson Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association 35 Verena Ohms Pelagic AC

Working Group II meeting 25 April 2017

11:10-16:00 hrs

Dublin Castle

Ireland


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

1) Opening of the meeting by the chairman, Sean O’Donoghue

The chairman opened the meeting at 11:10 and welcomed the participants.

2) Adoption of the agenda

The agenda was adopted without amendments.

Jérôme Jourdain was surprised that the issue concerning the Irish proposal for a closure of pelagic gears had not been included on the agenda for mackerel, but the chairman pointed out that it has been included under agenda item 6 dealing with western horse mackerel.

3) Follow-up on action items

The first action item had already been dealt with in Working Group I and was about how ICES will use non-quantitative stakeholder information in its ecosystem advice.

The second action item was to follow-up with ICES on the rules of including stakeholder information in the ICES advice. This issue had already been discussed several times, also at the last MIACO meeting, but ICES has still not provided a clear response. The chairman therefore suggested to write to ICES and ask for a response. This was a point of principle. ICES was of the opinion that it had the right to edit stakeholder information which it did for Celtic Sea herring and which in turn created a problem for some of the Pelagic AC members. The chairman wanted to clarify if ICES retains the editorial rights to stakeholder information. If so, he wanted to reconsider supplying stakeholder information.

Martin Pastoors wanted to know what kind of process the chairman had in mind in regards to supplying stakeholder information. In ICES there are ADGs during which some people are present from certain organizations and provide information, but he wanted to know whether the chairman had a specific idea on how to provide the information and how to evaluate it.

The chairman replied that in relation to the widely distributed stocks he saw the NPWG to be the appropriate industry body to supply information. For the other stocks this might be different. He pointed out that the Norwegian industry sometimes submits information as well, which so far has always been included. The chairman also thought that the information had to be limited to a few sentences and be concise. In regards to Celtic Sea herring the comment from stakeholders had been that they prefer the management strategy over MSY, but ICES had deleted that information.

The next item was to provide recommendations to the Executive Committee on amending the pelagic discard plan in the North Sea which had been completed and the Executive Committee has sent a recommendation to the Scheveningen Group.

The subsequent action item was to ask the Commission for an update on the Council Declaration, which was related to the footnote recommendation.

Line Groth-Rasmussen explained that at the December Council meeting some Member States had raised the issue of extending the footnotes. Other Member States were very much against extending any footnotes. In the end there was a joint statement by the Council and the Commission where Member States committed to submit supporting data if they wanted to extend the current footnote scheme. The deadline for submitting data had been the 28th of February, however, by that date no Member State had submitted any information. By now, some Member States have provided data, while others informed the Commission that they will submit data soon. The submissions from the Member States will have to be reviewed by STECF and the Commission intended to ask the Member States to send the data as soon as possible.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

The chairman concluded that there has not been much progress from the Member States. He said that the Pelagic AC might have to re-address some of the issues. He hoped that by July there will be a clear picture on what is going to happen.

Line Groth-Rasmussen added that the Commission planned to set an internal deadline of mid-May for the Member States to submit information, so that STECF can include it in its July meeting.

The next action item was in regards to the French draft amendments for the pelagic discard plans and was going to be dealt with later during the meeting.

In regard to Irish Sea herring Steven Mackinson explained that the planned meeting unfortunately did not take place given that recently Alan McCulla’s father passed away. However, he promised to follow up on the issue.

The chairman decided to keep the item on the list. In regards to herring in 6a South and 7b,c he explained that the development of a genetic sampling protocol is in progress and once this process has been finalized a genetics workshop will be arranged with ICES.

Under the Data Collection Framework (DCF) genetic sampling is not included and another action item was to ask the Commission and Member States to include it once a sampling protocol has been developed. Several marine research institutes also support the proposal. However, the chairman wondered how this could actually be done, i.e. what the modalities are. He asked the Commission for advice.

Line Groth-Rasmussen said that she would be happy to follow-up on this issue and clarify the modalities. She promised to report back to the Pelagic AC secretariat prior to the July meeting.

Gerard van Balsfoort supported including genetic sampling under the DCF. However, he also thought that the Commission and Member States will want to receive some expert advice on the relevance of the request. He said that this is not only about sampling, but also analyzing the samples and he felt that an intermediate step was needed to address how and why genetic sampling and analyses should be included under the DCF.

The chairman thought that people had already gone beyond that step and that everyone recognized the importance of genetics. There was a reason why the Commission announced a tender for herring genetics. He suggested formally writing to the Commission to ask for genetic sampling to be included under the DCF. In the meantime, he hoped that the Commission will report back to the Pelagic AC.

Edward Farrell suggested WKSPLIT, chaired by Martin Pastoors, as a vehicle to get the issue onto the ICES agenda.

The next action item was to organize a meeting with DG RESEARCH to seek funding for a broad genetics project.

Ken Whelan said that he had sent a letter to DG RESEARCH in late January, but did not receive a response from the Commission yet. He hoped that Line Groth-Rasmussen would be willing to help chasing up the issue.

Line Groth-Rasmussen expressed her willingness to provide help, but also suggested talking about the issue offline.

Peer-reviewing the genetics project will be done after it has been finalized. A draft rebuilding plan for herring in 6a South and 7b,c had been agreed by the focus group on the previous day and was going to be circulated after the meeting.

Further genetic, acoustic and morphometric research was ongoing.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

In regards to the Northeast Atlantic mackerel Andrew Campbell has been invited to present the outcomes of the benchmark later today.

For Southern horse mackerel the only action item was to continue developing a management strategy and to present the draft at the Pelagic AC meeting in July.

A letter had been sent to the NWW regional group regarding the boarfish closure, but a response has not yet been received.

Marco van Riel said that the NWW technical group was having a meeting today and he offered to try to get in touch with his colleague to find out more about the status of the closure.

The chairman thanked him for the efforts and pointed out that the compromise put forward was to change the date from 31 March to 15 March to bring it in line with the Irish regulation. He hoped that that would resolve the issue.

In regards to the boarfish acoustic survey Andrew Campbell said that the Marine Institute was about to finalize the survey grid. He also hoped to spend a good amount of time this year on improving the assessment model.

The final action items were in relation to Western horse mackerel. The first one was to invite an ICES expert to present the outcomes of the benchmark which Andrew Campbell had agreed to do.

The next two items, i.e. continuing the genetics project and the PFA research project, were ongoing.

The Irish industry proposal for an Ireland seasonal closure from April to September had been circulated and was going to be discussed later at the meeting.

The next focus group meeting will be arranged after today’s meeting and will also deal with developing a new management strategy for this stock.

4) Herring in 6a & 7b,c

• Rebuilding plan (presentation & discussion)

The chairman said that yesterday the 6a herring focus group had agreed on the terms of a rebuilding plan which will be circulated after today’s meeting. He asked Martin Pastoors to provide a brief overview of the document.

Martin Pastoors recalled that the benchmark in 2015 had decided that the herring stocks in 6a North and 6a South, 7b,c could no longer be assessed separately because of mixing of the stocks which could not be differentiated in surveys and catches. Therefore, ICES came up with a combined assessment. Currently, people are working on a method to split the stocks again and to develop a rebuilding plan. The monitoring TAC in 2016 allowed to establish an industry monitoring and research program. The draft rebuilding plan contained the following elements: background, objectives, definition, reference points, TAC setting procedure, monitoring plan, condition for monitoring fishery, ecosystem considerations, end of rebuilding phase. The TAC setting procedure in the draft plan foresees a status quo TAC of 5.800 tonnes, which may be adjusted downwards, if new information on stock status or the impact of the monitoring TAC becomes available. The idea is to improve the knowledge base and to make the data available for the scientific expert group. The question was how to proceed from here in terms of process.

The chairman thanked Martin Pastoors for his concise presentation and pointed out that a significant amount of work has gone into this. He also thanked Steven Mackinson, Susan Lusseau, Maurice Clarke and Michael O’Malley for bringing this project to fruition. Unfortunately the draft plan had not been


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

available in time to circulate it in advance of the current meeting. Therefore, the chairman suggested circulating it after today’s meeting and giving the Working Group two weeks to comment on the draft. If there are no objections, the plan will be submitted to the Executive Committee which hopefully can endorse the plan in less than two weeks. The chairman hoped to have an agreed position within one month.

Irene Kingma said that during the focus group meeting a couple of edits had been discussed and she asked whether those could be circulated to the Working Group.

The chairman replied that the edits are in the draft that will be circulated. However, if she thought that the document missed anything, then she had two weeks to comment. Once the plan has been endorsed by the Executive Committee it will be send to the Commission and Member States with the request to get it evaluated as quickly as possible, maybe even at the STECF July meeting.

• Update genetics project (Edward Farrell, information)

The chairman invited Edward Farrell to give a brief update on the herring genetics project.

Edward Farrell explained that ICES believed that there were two herring stocks in area 6a and 7b,c that frequently mixed, but spawned in different areas. An alternative hypothesis was that those areas comprise a single Malin Shelf herring population. The current genetics project was aiming at providing clarity about herring stock structure in the area. Over the past months a lot of different markers have been screened and Edward Farrell came up with a panel of markers that he thought will be able to split the stocks between North and South. Five of those markers show very distinct geographic patterns. Another 26 markers are still informative and should be included in the analysis as well. Neutral markers will also be included to detect if anything unusual is going on. A recent paper in PNAS identified markers which are different between autumn and spring spawning herring in the Western Atlantic, indicating that these patterns are very robust given that they are also found on the other side of the Atlantic. The marker panel now included 40 micro-satellites from stage 1 and 50 SNPs from stage 2 as well as 20 new micro-satellite markers which are located near informative markers. All samples from the previous year have been re-run with the new panel of markers, so that all data can be compared. There is a good spread across areas and years and the baseline data are much more comprehensive now. Thanks to the new high throughput equipment analyzing samples goes much quicker too. In summary, sampling, DNA extraction and marker development have been completed. Screening the samples with the markers will be done in May and June. The sequencing and sequence analysis will be completed by September and a panel of high-graded markers was expected to be available by October in time before the EU herring project starts in November. This project will focus on onboard sampling and splitting the stocks.

The chairman thanked Edward Farrell for his presentation and said that he will not ask him to present again in July, but in October. He recognized the industry contribution to this project and the Member States who supported the project. He asked the Commission to provide an update on the herring tender.

Line Groth-Rasmussen pointed out that her colleagues were working on the herring tender. When they saw the chance of extending the project from 1 year to 3 years, they took the opportunity and now DG MARE is working with EASME on the tender which she expected to be published mid-May. She hoped that the agreement could be signed by October.

The chairman considered it important that the Pelagic AC has been on the forefront of making this project happen and he suggested providing a letter of support to University College Dublin to do the work.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

5) Northeast Atlantic mackerel

• Benchmark results 2017 (Andrew Campbell, information)

The chairman invited Andrew Campbell to present the results of the mackerel benchmark.

Andrew Campbell said that as usual mackerel got most of the attention at the benchmark. He recalled that in 2013 WGWIDE rejected the mackerel assessment for several reasons. This sent shock waves through the mackerel world, because the default was to consider mackerel a data-limited stock. A new benchmark in 2014 replaced the rejected ICA model with the SAM model. SAM was chosen, because it is able to down-weight data prior to 2000 which ICES considered less reliable. It also can include the swept area survey which is a very wide survey and a unique approach for pelagics. Furthermore, it includes tagging data from the Norwegians, that allow tracking cohorts, and a recruitment index from groundfish surveys as well as data from the triennial egg survey. During 2015 to 2017 catch advice was based on MSY and a number of data handling errors occurred which reflect the pressure on the system. Those errors were entirely preventable and Andrew Campbell thought that ICES needed better structures to screen for such issues. He said that people took this very seriously and are working on improving the process.

During the 2017 benchmark the SAM model has been developed further. Performance and diagnostics improved and there is a greater number of parameters that can be estimated. There have been additional changes to allow the incorporation of new data. Updating the assessment was an iterative process and model diagnostics were used to determine the appropriateness of an update. How well the model performs is judged on its ability to track the dynamics of the stock. In the updated assessment the pre-2000 catch data remain down-weighted. The swept area survey now uses ages 3 to 11 although ages 3 and 4 are less widespread. 2007 and 2011 have been dropped. People also discovered a survey year effect which is usually bad news for the assessment. However, adjustments were made in the model to account for this.

RFID tagging data from 2011 onwards have been included in the assessment. These are different tags than used previously, because these tags are being screened at the factories and do not have to be recovered. Effectively, this is a new data set, because the method is different. Since a greater proportion of the total catch can be screened, this data set becomes very valuable. However, a possible factory effect remains to be investigated.

Regarding the egg survey the provisional 2016 data point has been included in the assessment and the entire time series has been reviewed and recalculated as recommended by WKPELA. For the recruitment index some data issues have been identified and the index will be incorporated at the Working Group in September. Maturity ogive calculations have been updated, while natural mortality assumptions remained unchanged even though this is unrealistic. Based on the outcome of sensitivity tests it was decided to continue using the in-year survey data and the preliminary egg survey data. Comparing the new assessment with the previous assessment shows that both are broadly similar in regards to historical stock development. In the last decade SSB estimates have been reduced by 8% on average while fishing mortality has increased. The individual updates have different effects. The inclusion of younger fish from the survey increases SSB, whereas the RFID tags and the survey year effect reduce SSB. The egg survey and swept area survey indicate different trends. This could be due to climate change which affects stock distribution. However, people felt confident that both surveys are good enough to be used.

Reference points are always difficult to deal with, because the assessment has to be finalized before reference points can be calculated and usually there is not enough time, although reference points are essential. Reference points based on the assessment can easily be calculated and were revised. Blim is


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

at 1.94 Mt, Bpa at 2.6 Mt and MSY Btrigger at 2.6 Mt. The remaining mortality reference points, however, rely on long-term simulations. The benchmark suggested using the upcoming management plan evaluation to calculate those reference points.

The chairman thanked Andrew Campbell for the presentation and invited questions from the audience.

Claus Reedtz-Sparrevohn who participated in the benchmark himself said that part of the terms of reference was to look at ecosystem considerations and include those in the advice. However, that has not been done.

Andrew Campbell responded that ideally this would have been looked at. However, the truth was that there were not enough resources to do so. It was easy to overestimate what can be done at a benchmark. Unless someone volunteers to look at those issues they are usually not being addressed.

Gerard van Balsfoort thanked Andrew Campbell for his very clear presentation. He wanted to know if people had looked at the advice in regards to the North Sea component. It seemed to him that the comment about the North Sea component was automatically included in the advice year after year without having a sound basis for this.

Andrew Campbell replied that this had been discussed very briefly after the meeting. When something made its way into the ICES advice, people had to demonstrate that it was appropriate to change it. Otherwise there was a tendency to just leave it in since people argued that protecting something did not do any harm. However, there were different views in regards to whether there even was a North Sea component. The egg survey showed low levels of spawning in the North Sea and there was no information that said that this particular protection was not necessary. In the end it was decided to just leave the protection. Andrew Campbell admitted that these kind of issues do not receive the attention they deserve, because everyone just focuses on the assessment.

The chairman was concerned about the opposite signals coming from the egg survey and the swept area survey. He wanted to know how the model deals with this contradiction and whether it takes a line down the middle. He wanted to know how this difference can be reconciled and whether the surveys will still be done in the same way.

Andrew Campbell explained that the assessment considers all data and that some data sources are richer than others. Catch at age is a very rich data source and therefore the key driver of the model. The same goes for the swept area survey even though it is somewhat less important while the egg survey suffers from the fact that it is only being carried out once every three years. The assessment will attach itself more favorably to consistent data. If one survey gives a different signal than others, then the model will give less importance to that survey. However, these data cannot be removed unless they do not meet the quality standard and a lot of effort is spent on ensuring that the egg survey is done appropriately. Both surveys look at different things and therefore they can show different trends without one of them being wrong. There was no reason to exclude either survey.

Gerard van Balsfoort said that there had been a political decision to increase the flexibility to catch Western mackerel in area 4a leading to much higher catches in 4a now. He wanted to know whether ICES had thought about evaluating the effect of that.

Andrew Campbell said that ironically the fishery in the North has grown more and that 4a has always been very important. He said that ICES had not received a request to look at this issue.

Martin Pastoors said that this subject was linked to the discussion about protecting the North Sea component. There is an increase of catches in area 4a, but ICES cannot assess the impact of that. People have no idea where the North Sea component is distributed nor whether it even exists and yet ICES continues giving the same advice over and over again.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Claus Reedtz-Sparrevohn said that the biggest fishery in the North Sea is on the Western component, not the North Sea component which has a different spawning time. He did not see any indication that there was a mixed fishery there.

The chairman wanted to know how the assessment model treats the different survey signals and how it will do it in a few years. He said that the swept area survey was weighted stronger and therefore caused a decrease in the advice.

Andrew Campbell said that the egg survey only takes place every three years. It is therefore weighted less strong in those years where there is no egg survey. The previous model had done the same. The further the egg survey is in the past, the more assumptions have to be made and the more uncertain things become. However, now there were more data available. Nevertheless, the egg survey is weighted less strongly.

The chairman said that Fmsy is one of the most important reference points and he understood that people had already done some trial runs. He wanted to know in what direction these trials were pointing.

Andrew Campbell could not remember the exact figure, but said that it will be substantially lower than the current one. However, the trial runs had been done with the ICES standard software which always gives a lower Fmsy. He considered management strategy evaluations to be much more appropriate for calculating Fmsy. This is because the ICES standard software is very generic, whereas management strategy evaluations are much more specific.

Line Groth-Rasmussen informed the meeting that Norway had sent an invitation for consultation on 22 to 24 May to discuss the need to revise the management strategy based on the benchmark.

The chairman thanked her for the information and said that he had not seen any revised management strategy yet, other than the one that is already being discussed.

6) Western horse mackerel

• Benchmark results 2017 (Andrew Campbell, information)

Andrew Campbell explained that Western horse mackerel is known for its pulse recruitment events which make it very difficult to assess the stock. The current assessment model for Western horse mackerel had been developed in the mid-2000s to deal with large year classes. Given the lack of fishery independent data and the fact that horse mackerel is an indeterminate spawner means that even the egg survey is of limited use only. There is a large uncertainty in the estimates of SSB and fishing mortality. The assessment model is inflexible with regard to the inclusion of alternative data sources and makes an inappropriate assumption of constant selectivity.

The idea at the benchmark had therefore been to come up with a new model. The new model is called stock synthesis assessment model and has been developed by NOAA Fisheries. It is very complex, but flexible and has been designed to utilize different fishery and survey data like age, length, seasons and partial coverage. However, only very few people understand how the model works.

It has been configured for Western horse mackerel to include total landings, numbers at length and catch at age from the commercial catch with the PG extended to 15+ from 11+. The egg survey has been included from 1992 onwards as well as a recruitment index derived from groundfish surveys. Biomass estimates, number at length and conditional age at length from French and Spanish acoustic surveys have also been included.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

During the benchmark several scenarios were explored and a lot of runs carried out, but only one person at the benchmark understood how the model works. The final benchmark assessment used only one fleet, the egg survey, the recruitment index and the PELACUS survey.

Comparing the new assessment with the previous assessment is difficult, because it includes a lot of new data and uses a completely different model. Nevertheless there are similar stock developments in terms of the large years classes in 1982 and 2001 and similar recruitment estimates. However, there is a change in perception regarding biomass development and recent fishing mortality has been revised upwards and earlier mortality downwards. The stock is still considered to be at a low level. There is some indication of recent recruitment which has yet to be seen in the principal data sources. In conclusion, the new model has a lot of potential and provides a good opportunity to develop the assessment further.

After the meeting people also looked at reference points, which have always been a problem for this stock, trying to follow the ICES guidelines as best as possible. The Fmsy has been revised slightly downwards which is not surprising given that the new model indicated a somewhat lower productivity. Blim has been set to 662 kt and corresponds to the lowest observed biomass. Bpa is based on Blim and takes into account assessment uncertainty. Its value is 912 kt. Long-term simulations led to Flim = 0.15, Fpa = 0.11 and Fmsy = 0.11. MSY Btrigger is equal to Bpa.

The chairman thanked Andrew Campbell for the presentation and wanted to know how many groundfish surveys had been included in the assessment.

Andrew Campbell responded that the Scottish, Irish and French groundfish surveys had been included while the Spanish had been excluded.

Esben Sverdrup-Jensen was under the impression that there are sometimes different fashions in fisheries science regarding which assessment models to use. He wanted to know whether the new model will spread to other stocks as well.

Andrew Campbell replied that it is already used a lot, albeit not in pelagics. He said that there is a community that seems to pick up the model more and more.

Martin Pastoors said that he had already raised some issues after the benchmark, namely that there is a tendency to focus on certain elements, only to find out afterwards that not enough time has been spent on other elements. He thought that the critical evaluation of data that have gone into the assessment has not been done properly. He said that the reference points are strongly influenced by one small Spanish survey that takes place in 8c and only covers a very small part of the stock, but has a big impact on the overall outcome of the assessment. He considered it highly problematic to use a survey that hardly covers the stock to draw conclusions about the entire stock.

Andrew Campbell admitted that this was a fair criticism. He said that spending the entire benchmark only on this stock would still not have been enough. The data coordination meeting should have addressed these kind of issues, but if people are not ready to look at this, then there is a tendency to just let things slip. He agreed that the process was not optimal and said that people might want to consider canceling a benchmark if the data coordination workshop does not do a good job.

The chairman was concerned about the new reference points and their overall effect. The stock size is roughly estimated to be half a million tonnes while MSY Btrigger is set at 912 kt.

Andrew Campbell said that the assessment will have a new data point in it and that the benchmark does not provide the basis for the advice, only the method for the assessment. However, he did expect the advice to come down.

The chairman wanted to know whether excluding the Spanish survey would have changed the reference points.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Martin Pastoors could not assess this. However, he pointed out that the main issue was that the trigger point used to be 500 kt while now the limit is 662 kt and that has a major effect.

The chairman subsequently wanted to know what the value for natural mortality is.

Andrew Campbell said that it is the same as for mackerel.

It did not seem correct to the chairman that natural mortality is higher than Fmsy. He said that adjusting natural mortality could solve the problem and he wanted to know whether that had been done for mackerel.

Andrew Campbell replied that no other scenarios had been run with a different natural mortality, but that the issue will remain on the list of things to be looked at.

Martin Pastoors said that the reason for having so many meetings on reference points is that there is no scientific way of determining reference points. It is a judgement call and each reference point is only as good as the people defending it. In the case of Western horse mackerel there is no stock-recruitment relationship which makes any reference point very arbitrary.

The chairman recalled that the focus group had been actively looking at natural mortality. He wanted to know whether it would feed into the system if the group came up with a new value for natural mortality.

Andrew Campbell thought that this would likely be a benchmark issue, but sometimes the Working Group deals with benchmark issues. Alternatively, there could be an inter-benchmark.

José Beltran wanted to know what could be done in relation to natural mortality.

Andrew Campbell said that he was not the best person to answer the question and that he has not looked at the issue. He thought the best way would be to carry out a tag and release experiment. However, this was difficult for this kind of stock. He was not aware of another way of determining natural mortality.

The chairman believed that CEFAS had some papers on natural mortality that could be circulated.

Andrew Campbell promised to find out about it.

Steven Mackinson pointed out that he had prepared a document on natural mortality for mackerel and horse mackerel for the Working Group. However, there was not much evidence to draw from. He looked at multispecies models, but the best he could conclude was that young fish have higher mortality than older fish and that it is not good to have a fixed natural mortality across all ages over time. Changing the assumption did not have a big impact on mackerel, but he did not get to test it for horse mackerel.

• Update Management Strategy & Irish Seasonal Closure (discussion)

The chairman said that a new management strategy for Western horse mackerel and the Irish seasonal closure go hand in hand and should not be considered separate entities. The last time the issue had been addressed in detail was on the 10th of December 2015, but it was decided to park the issue mainly due to problems with the assessment. The problem was that no matter what was done in relation to fishing mortality, natural mortality would wipe out the stock anyway. Last October the issue was dealt with again and one of the agreed action items was to present a proposal at the February meeting. The chairman was aware and pleased that the proposal invoked a lot of criticism and discussion showing that people are now more actively involved in the work of the focus group. He did not intend discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the closure today. Instead he suggested reconvening the focus group now that the benchmark results were available. During the next focus group meeting the draft


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

strategy from December 2015 and the closure will be discussed. He said that the idea of the closure was to protect young horse mackerel coming in, but he was open for other suggestions on how to do this. He hoped that the people who appeared very vocal about the closure will also join the focus group. He intended to have the focus group meeting sometime in June before the July meeting. He hoped that Andrew Campbell and other scientists will be able to join the meeting too. He asked people to inform the secretariat if they wanted to join the focus group.

Jérôme Jourdain said that he did not understand why the proposal deals with mackerel and is linked to boarfish if the intention was to protect horse mackerel. He neither understood the meaning of the proposal nor whether the focus group will deal with mackerel or horse mackerel.

The chairman said that the intention of the focus group is to deal with horse mackerel and that the original closure mentioned in the draft related to the draft management strategy for horse mackerel to protect recruitment. As a consequence of that there is mixing of various pelagic species including mackerel and boarfish. He said that the current proposal should include horse mackerel as well and that unfortunately it had been omitted in the proposal. He said that the focus group will deal with the closure further, but that that is not the only issue the focus group has to deal with. He also said that having such a closure will affect mackerel as well.

Gerard van Balsfoort agreed with reconvening the focus group, but he also agreed with the French comments that the objective of the proposal is unclear. He said that it was true that people had already raised the possibility of implementing a closure previously. However, translating this possibility into the current proposal came as a big surprise to him. He supported having another focus group meeting to discuss what could be done to get the stock back on track and he encouraged everyone interested in the fishery to join the focus group, including the French members, NGOs, scientists and Member States. He said that some of the measures to be discussed could hurt the industry substantially and therefore everyone had to be there to discuss the issue.

The chairman concluded that the focus group will consider genetics and stock ID issues as well.

Edward Farrell suggested including the southern stock in the stock ID project too.

7) NWW discard plan

• Update from the regional group (information)

The chairman asked Marco van Riel to give an update on the NWW regional group.

Marco van Riel said that Belgium was chairing the NWW group. As he had mentioned earlier the technical group was currently discussing a new joint recommendation. As a starting point the NWW group proposed a roll-over of the current discard plan, meaning that as much as possible will remain the same. This is due to the legal basis not being clear yet. Even though the main proposal is for a roll-over there is some room for amendments. He was happy to see that there already was a draft advice. He said that the next HLG meeting will be on the 10th of May and he therefore asked the Pelagic AC to agree on a recommendation as soon as possible, so that it can be taken into account.

The chairman said that the Pelagic AC has consistently raised the issue of having an opportunity to discuss the widely distributed stocks among all Member States. He was fully aware how the Member States felt about this request, but he nevertheless wanted to know whether there has been any movement in terms of achieving some uniformity in regards to the same stocks being fished under the responsibility of different regional groups.

Marco van Riel replied that the issue has been discussed in the Scheveningen Group and while there was no support from Member States for having yet another regional group, people were willing to


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

agree to an annual meeting with all relevant regional groups and the Pelagic AC. Furthermore, video conference facilities will be used in the future to make it easier for Pelagic AC representatives to participate in regional group meetings.

The chairman was pleased to hear that there has been some progress and he considered it useful to have an annual meeting. The other take home message he had for the regional groups was that the Pelagic AC would like to remain involved in discussions about control and enforcement.

• Amendments (discussion, decision)

The chairman summarized that prior to the last meeting some French members had submitted comments. However, nobody from the organization that submitted the comments attended the meeting and people were not exactly sure what was being asked for. In the meantime there has been some contact between the secretariat and the French organizations and a draft recommendation on de minimis and high survival has been uploaded to the website including accompanying documents to justify the exemptions.

Nicolas Michelet confirmed that the French industry made a request for several de minimis and high survival exemptions for the NWW in 2018 to 2020.

Irene Kingma referred to an STECF report which said that there was very little reporting from the Member States on the uptake of de minimis exemptions. She therefore wondered on what data the request was based.

Nicolas Michelet was happy to provide some general background information about the thought process that led to the current proposal. He said that France tried to educate people about the landing obligation and promoted it. However, enforcement had to be done in a gradual fashion. Imposing the landing obligation in a very strict way will have negative effects. The current proposal was asking for a roll-over of the existing exemptions based on two things: taking into account discard levels as in the former plan and having a maximum threshold of 5% in reference to the CFP.

Jérôme Jourdain added that the de minimis for blue whiting is applying to a very specific case where the catch is processed into surimi onboard the vessel. The exemption is based on the fact that selectivity cannot be increased and that a total landing obligation would create unbearably high costs as well as pose a threat in regards to health and safety. He also added that the de minimis in 2018 should be 6% and in the subsequent years 5%.

The chairman understood the issue in regards to the surimi vessel. He said that the Pelagic AC had previously submitted a very specific recommendation on that. However, an EU regulation cannot be designed in such a way that it mentions one particular vessel. He also pointed out that the current de minimis was 5%.

Stella Nemecky said that it is one thing to set a de minimis and argue about the exact number, but another to determine whether a de minimis is actually needed. STECF said that what is reported is very low and it doubted that these amounts corresponded to what was really going on. Therefore, data collection and appropriate recording was extremely important when allowing a de minimis. She said that according to STECF Member States did an extremely poor job in terms of recording discards and she wanted to make it very clear that Member States had to improve.

The chairman agreed with Stella Nemecky. He also recalled that the Pelagic AC supported the blue whiting de minimis in the first place, because it recognized that it was only necessary for the one surimi vessel and as far as he was aware that vessel has been recording properly.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Jérôme Jourdain did not work for the fishing company that owns the surimi vessel, but he confirmed that that vessel has recorded everything properly.

Gerard van Balsfoort pointed out that the Netherlands had a small de minimis for boarfish which was fully utilized and the data had been transmitted to the ministry. He strongly agreed that any exemptions making it easier to implement the landing obligation had to be well monitored. He furthermore said that asking for a roll-over of the de minimis exemptions as currently stated would also imply a renewal of the de minimis exemptions for other stocks such as Albacore tuna and boarfish. He would very much support a renewal of the de minimis for boarfish.

The chairman said that Albacore tuna was not included in the draft recommendation, because the Pelagic AC has no remit for it. In regards to boarfish he said that nobody submitted a recommendation and previous agreement had been that the de minimis for boarfish should only apply for a three year period.

Gerard van Balsfoort was aware of that, but pointed out that he interpreted the draft recommendation as a request for roll-over of all exemptions which he supported. He would even prefer a recommendation of more than 1% de minimis for boarfish given that in previous years the de minimis had been fully utilized and after that the PFA had to buy boarfish quota. If people did not agree on having a de minimis for boarfish, then the text of the draft recommendation would have to be changed.

Nicolas Michelet said that the French proposal only addressed stocks that are relevant for French fisheries and therefore did not explicitly mention boarfish. The proposal did include Albacore tuna, but he understood why it had been taken out.

José Beltran thought that there was an opportunity to have a 6% de minimis in 2018 which would be reduced to 5% in subsequent years.

Jérôme Jourdain confirmed that that was also the French interpretation and he suggested to have a 6% de minimis in 2018 and a 5% de minimis in 2019 and 2020.

The chairman said that it would still be possible to adjust the number for 2018. The second de minimis as proposed was dealing with the Channel and was a maximum of 1% in 2018, 2019 and 2020 for mackerel, horse mackerel and herring fisheries using mid-water trawl (OTM) and mid-water pair trawl (PTM).

Nicolas Michelet said that this de minimis was fully justified in a document that been circulated to the group earlier. There was little data for OTM gear, but lots of data for PTM gear. The rationale was linked to the lack of predictability of catches. The supporting document highlighted a number of issues, including the limited scope to improve gear selectivity and the disproportionately high costs when the catch rate of unwanted species is high.

Irene Kingma said that no supporting document had been circulated to the Working Group before the meeting. However, Verena Ohms pointed out that all documents had been uploaded to the website and that the corresponding link had been sent out by email to all members asking them to download the documents directly from the website.

The chairman also pointed out that these comments had already been addressed at the previous meeting in February, when there was confusion about how to correctly interpret the proposal. Nothing new had been proposed compared to the February meeting and all relevant documents were indeed on the Pelagic AC website.

Gerard van Balsfoort had no problem with the recommendation and pointed out that he had asked for a de minimis exemption from the start of the landing obligation. In the channel there is a lot of bycatch of horse mackerel in the demersal fishery and good monitoring was really important in general. Therefore, he wanted to include a specific comment about the significance of monitoring.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

The chairman concluded that those two de minimis recommendations were agreed. He wanted to know what the proposal for boarfish was.

Gerard van Balsfoort said that looking at the draft recommendation he understood that all de minimis exemptions would be rolled over. If that was not meant to be, the draft would have to be changed. In the first year of the landing obligation there was a 1% de minimis for boarfish and 0.75% in the second year. The PFA has used the entire boarfish de minimis and could prove that with appropriate records. He therefore thought that there should at least be a 1% de minimis.

The chairman concluded to include that as well and moved on to the survival recommendation.

Esben Sverdrup-Jensen supported the renewal of the high survival exemption. He also pointed out that he wanted to find a wording that suited everyone instead of having different recommendations for different fisheries.

The chairman replied that he will have to work together with the Spanish members to come up with the best wording.

Miren Garmendia said that the situation was different for anchovy fisheries. The purse-seiners in Spain are smaller and have different characteristics. There are different types of fleets and the definition of the high survival exemption for anchovy had been formulated together with scientists. She wanted to keep that definition and said that a recommendation that might be valid for the Danish purse-seine fleet is not necessarily valid for the Spanish purse-seine fleet.

Irene Kingma raised again the argument of data. Three years ago when the original recommendation on the landing obligation was published by the Pelagic AC she had been quite critical about this exemption and she wanted to know if there was any new data since she had not seen anything.

Claus Reedtz-Sparrevohn did not know if new data were yet available, but he pointed out that there is an ongoing study in Norway which the Pelagic AC had been informed about previously. This study is looking into reasons for fish to die during purse-seine operations and whether this is related to stress or lack of oxygen. If it is lack of oxygen, then the operation should be done very fast. If it is due to stress, i.e. compression, then the strategy should be not to close the net too much. He said that the project was to finish within one year.

The chairman concluded that apart from anchovy it should be possible to have uniform rules for all species.

Esben Sverdrup-Jensen considered it worth the effort. He was not suggesting one recommendation that would fit to all fisheries. Rather, he pointed out that the Norwegians have a set of rules they are working with and he wanted to come up with a similar set of rules that can apply to all EU purse-seine fisheries.

The chairman concluded that Esben Sverdrup-Jensen will talk to the French and Spanish members to formulate a set of rules, but warned members that this had to be done very quickly.

Christine Absil said that the basis for any exemption should be scientific evidence for the particular métier. The Spanish have provided that for their artisanal fleet. She urged people to be careful to simply extrapolate these rules or use the Norwegian rules for the EU fleets. She said that each métier should have its own justification.

The chairman agreed, but also pointed out that the discussion was about renewing the existing rules which are based on data that had already been submitted.

Christine Absil believed to remember that the mackerel exemption was based on the assumption that data would be provided and she now wondered whether the data have been provided. If not, then there should not be an automatic roll-over.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Martin Pastoors was new to the topic, but saw that all the references in the supporting document were from 2014 or earlier. So, the exemption was based on work that had been submitted before. However, he did not see the rationale for the numbers used.

Miren Garmendia said that scientists at AZTI have studied survival of anchovy and based on the results of their studies provided the numbers in the regulation. However, the same gear used for anchovy is also being used for horse mackerel. She promised to consult AZTI on how to proceed further with the recommendation.

The chairman agreed that this should be the way forward.

Claus Reedtz-Sparrevohn said that the Norwegians studies on herring and mackerel are very solid and that therefore there were no new experiments on the issue. Instead, current research was focusing on the reason for mortality which is equally important, because that will determine how the fishing operation should be performed.

The chairman said that before the recommendation can be agreed on people had to submit data in relation to the high survival exemption.

8) SWW discard plan

• Update from the regional group (information)

Pierre Tribon was representing the SWW regional group and thanked the Pelagic AC for the invitation to participate in this meeting. He said that in regards to amending the discard plan for pelagics the SWW regional group agreed on a roll-over, just like the NWW regional group proposed. He also said that the next meeting of the SWW regional group will be on the 31st of May in Paris and he hoped to receive the Pelagic AC’s recommendation prior to that meeting. Based on the discussion regarding the NWW discard plan he did not think that it was necessary to go through all the details of the draft proposal. He emphasized that the SWW regional group was trying to ensure that the rules are the same for pelagics in all areas with only small adjustments for the SWW artisanal fleets.

The chairman thanked Pierre Tribon for his comments.

• Amendments (discussion, decision)

The chairman hoped that the French proposal reflected what the SWW regional group was also proposing, namely a 5% de minimis for blue whiting and a 4% de minimis for mackerel and horse mackerel in the trawl and purse-seine fisheries.

Nicolas Michelet said that in the first year the de minimis for blue whiting should be 6%.

The chairman agreed and also said that the comments in regards to monitoring will also be included in the recommendations in the same way as has been agreed for the NWW. The meeting agreed.

The final issue was in relation to the survival recommendation. The French proposal suggested to extend the exemption half a degree into the NWW area. The chairman asked for the underlying reason.

Nicolas Michelet explained that there is a small-scale purse-seine fishery that is active in the southern part of the NWW which targets the same species and fishes in the same manner as in the SWW. In the SWW there already is an exemption and the proposal was to extend it a bit into the NWW in order to align the rules across the discard plans.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Furthermore, Jérôme Jourdain explained that in the ICES advice for anchovy in the Bay of Biscay, these French catches taken in subarea 7 near the border with subarea 8 (ICES rectangles 25E4 and 25E5) are considered to belong to the same stock and same fishery and are included in the ICES assessment.

The chairman thought that extending the exemption in the NWW would have to be discussed between the two regional groups. Furthermore, it should be included in the NWW discard plan given that it covers an area in the NWW.

9) AOB

There was no other business.

10) End of meeting

The chairman closed the meeting at 16:10 hrs.


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

Action items

General:

• Send a letter to ICES inquiring whether it retains the editorial rights to stakeholder information (chairman, secretariat)

Irish Sea herring:

• Continue development of management strategy (Ian Gatt, Steven Mackinson, Alan McCulla)

Herring in VIa and VIIb,c:

• Develop a genetic sampling protocol (6.a herring focus group) ongoing

• Arrange a genetics workshop with ICES once the sampling protocol is available (6.a herring focus group, Ken Whelan) ongoing

• Find out how genetic sampling could be included in the Data Collection Framework and report back to the Pelagic AC (Line Groth-Rasmussen)

• Ask Member States and Commission to include genetic sampling in Data Collection Framework once a protocol has been developed (Pelagic AC)

• Include genetic sampling at WKSPLIT (Martin Pastoors)

• Arrange meeting with DG RESEARCH to seek funding for broad pelagic genetics project (Ken Whelan)

• Peer-review herring genetics project (Ken Whelan, AST)

• Distribute draft rebuilding plan (secretariat) and provide comments within two weeks (Working Group II)

• Continue genetic, acoustic and morphometric research (NPWG)

• Present update on genetics project at October meeting (Edward Farrell)

• Provide letter of support from the Pelagic AC to University College Dublin for the herring project (chairman, secretariat)

Southern horse mackerel

• Present draft management strategy at PELAC July meeting (Manuela Azevedo, Gersom Costas, José Beltran, Goncalo Carvalho, secretariat)

Western horse mackerel

• Continue genetics project (NPWG, PFA)

• Continue PFA research project (PFA)

• Convene focus group meeting in June to discuss draft management strategy including the proposed closure (secretariat, chairman)


Working Group II

Co-funded by the EU

• Continue to develop management strategy (focus group)

• Find out about CEFAS papers on natural mortality and submit to the secretariat (Andrew Campbell)

Boarfish

• Follow-up on boarfish closures with NWW regional group (chairman, secretariat)

• Improve the assessment model

High survivability and de minimis exemptions

• Formulate set of rules to apply to EU purse-seine fisheries in regards to high survivability exemptions (Esben Sverdrup-Jensen, Jérôme Jourdain, Nicolas Michelet, Miren Garmendia)

• Contact AZTI and ask for advice regarding the high survivability exemption for horse mackerel (Miren Garmendia)

• Submit new information to substantiate high survivability exemptions (all Working Group members)

• Submit de minimis recommendation to NWW and SWW group before 9 May 2017

• Submit comments on SWW discard plan before 31st of May 2017

louis braillelaan 80 working group ii meeting wgii 25.04.2017.pdf · overview of the document....

Documents