9 research outputs found
Report of the Working Group on Commercial Catches (WGCATCH)
The Working Group on Commercial Catches (WGCATCH), chaired by Mike Arm-
strong (UK) and Hans Gerritsen (Ireland), met in ICES HQ, Copenhagen, Denmark,
10–14 November 2014. The meeting was attended by 34 experts from 21 laboratories
or organizations, covering 16 countries.
Currently, an important task for WGCATCH is to improve and review sampling sur-
vey designs for commercial fisheries, particularly those for estimating quantities and
size or age compositions of landings and discards and providing data quality indica-
tors. However, the scope of WGCATCH is broader than this, covering many other
aspects of collection and analysis of data on fishing activities and catches. This will be
end-user driven, and coordinated with the work of other ICES data EGs such as the
Working Group on Biological Parameters (WGBIOP), the Planning Group on Data
Needs for Assessments and Advice (PGDATA) and the Working Group on Recrea-
tional Fisheries Surveys (WGRFS) to ensure synergy and efficiency.
The report of the meeting commences with background information on the formation
of WGCATCH and its overall role. The remainder of the report provides the out-
comes for each of the Terms of Reference (ToRs) and responses to external requests,
the proposed future work plan and the ToRs for the 2015 meeting.
The group formed two large subgroups to deal with the two major terms of reference
which are the development of guidelines for carrying out sampling of catches on
shore and the provision of advice on adapting sampling programmes to deal with the
landing obligation.
In order to evaluate methods and develop guidelines for best practice in carrying out
sampling of commercial sampling of commercial fish catches onshore, a question-
naire was circulated before the meeting. This questionnaire was structured around
guidelines developed by the ICES Workshop on Practical Implementation of Statisti-
cally Sound Catch Sampling Programmes (WKPICS) for best practice at each stage of
the sampling process, and asked for a description of current practices at each of these
stages. Based on these questionnaires, common and specific problems were cata-
logued and potential solutions were identified. At the same time, the discussion of
the questionnaires provided a form of peer-review of the sampling designs and iden-
tified where improvements could be made. WGCATCH provided guidelines for de-
signing a sampling survey and summarized earlier guidelines provided by the 2010
Workshop on methods for merging métiers for fishery based sampling (WKMERGE)
The other main subject addressed by WGCATCH concerns the provision of advice on
adapting sampling protocols to deal with the impact of the introduction of the land-
ing obligation, which will alter discarding practices and result in additional catego-
ries of catch being landed. A second questionnaire was circulated before the meeting
to allow the group to identify the fleets that will be affected and possible issues that
are anticipated, as well as to propose solutions to adapt existing monitoring and
sampling schemes and to quantify bias resulting from the introduction of this regula-
tion. WGCATCH outlined a range of likely scenarios and the expected effects of
these on fishery sampling programmes, and developed guidelines for adapting sam-
pling schemes. The group also explored a range of analyses that could be conducted
in order to quantify bias resulting from the introduction of the landing obligation.
Finally a number of pilot studies/case studies were summarized, highlighting the
practical issues involve
Small- and medium-sized pelagic species. In: Handbook of fish age estimation protocols and validation methods. Chapter 4.
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