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Adjusted anchovy assessment with implications for OMP-08

This corrected assessment fits the survey data better. Unlike for the previous assessment which used incorrect catch data, there now appears to be no compelling reason to change the juvenile natural mortality from the 0.9 yr-1 used for the 2004 assessment and in testing OMP-04, particularly since estimates of the ratios of biases for the acoustic survey abundance

Further considerations for OMP-08

OMP-08 has been updated following the recommendations of the Pelagic Working Group. The implications of such changes to the OMP are shown in this document, together with the implications for some further alternatives to the sardine and anchovy exceptional circumstances rules and the additional season anchovy TAC rule

Is the sardine population now outside the range tested for OMP-04, and if so, what are the implications for the basis for recommending a 2007 directed sardine TAC

The below average recruitment to the sardine population in 2004 and 2005 has sparked concern as to whether this has taken the population outside the range projected when OMP-04 was tested. OMP-04 (Cunningham and Butterworth 2005) was developed on the basis of assessments taking data up to November 2003 into account, a period ending when the sardine biomass was at a peak (Cunningham and Butterworth 2004)

A review of world sardine catch patterns: What can be said about the likely duration of the current peak in South African sardine fishery

The question of how long the current peak in South African sardine catch will extend is posed. Historic sardine catch series throughout the world are considered and two models are fitted to these series to establish their reliability for predicting future trends in catches. The authors find little basis to draw conclusions for the South African resource based on trends elsewhere. More dependable inferences may be forthcoming from the South African catch series itself, analyses of which suggest that catches may remain high (above some 200 000 tons) until about 2007, but this inference should not be considered particularly reliable

The estimation of uncapped acoustic survey biomass from capped data

Management of the South African sardine and anchovy resources is critically dependent on estimates of recruitment and spawner biomass obtained from hydroacoustic surveys. These surveys commenced in 1984, but in 1997 new equipment (an EK500 echo sounder) replaced the older EK400 echo sounder. The introduction of the EK500 echo sounder revealed a saturation problem with the EK400 echo sounder, particularly for sardine (Coetzee 2003). Survey estimates since June 1997 were initially ‘capped’ at - 29dB for assessment purposes, to maintain a comparable time-series from 1984

MSYR—should the information which has become available since selections were made for RMP development in 1987 have changed perceptions on the likely range and relative plausibilities of values for this parameter for baleen whales

It is argued that continued attempts to estimate MSYR from accumulating data, to refine the plausible range of values for this parameter and relative plausibilities within this range, cannot be other than a crucial component of the process of development (and, in due course, refinement) of the Revised Management Procedure (RMP) and of the interpretation of the results of the associated Implementation Simulation Trials (ISTs) for particular RMP applications. In 1987, when the range of MSYR values for RMP trials was first specified, four of the six independent sources of information available suggested definite "low" MSYR values (~1%). None of these four sources appears to have survived to the present. Estimates of MSYR for twenty populations have become available since 1987 - eleven based on population model fits and the balance on the relationship MSYR > r(0)/2. Two arguments advanced previously against the use of this last relationship are considered: the one is dismissed because it lacks support in empirical data, while the other appears negated by an analysis by Best (1993). In the fourteen cases where estimates of MSYR (in terms of uniform selectivity harvesting on the 1+ population) are determined with reasonable precision, most lie in the 2%-6% range, and only one of these has a lower 90 or 95% confidence/probability bound below 1%. Cases of low point estimates of MSYR show wide confidence intervals not incompatible with this 2-6% range. Thus, evidence forthcoming since 1987 (much of it subsequent to 1993 when the Scientific Committee last discussed this issue substantively) would seem to support a change in the Committee's perception at that time of the likely range of values for MSYR for baleen whale stocks, as well as informing judgments on the relative plausibilities of values within this range

Re-revised OMP-04

The Operational Management Procedure currently used to set South African sardine and anchovy total allowable catches and sardine bycatches, OMP-04, was revised in early 2005 and documented in Cunningham and Butterworth (2005). This was in response to a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling which referred the matter of the distribution of the pelagic TAC for the 2005 season back to the Department for fresh determination. Subsequent to this ruling, the Cape High Court ruled that the revised pelagic allocations for 2005 again be set aside and fresh determinations made. This document details the further modifications made to OMP-04 in response thereto, and provides the science behind this “re-revision”. It should be read in conjunction with Cunningham and Butterworth (2004a), which detailed OMP-04 as agreed by the Marine and Coastal Management Pelagic Working Group in June 2004, and Cunningham and Butterworth (2004b) which contains the finalised rules governing exceptional circumstances

Skunk River Review Fall 2005, vol 17

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