CCAMLR

At its 2011 meeting, the Scientific Committee agreed that a time series of relative abundance from a well-designed survey could be a useful input into the Ross Sea stock assessment model. The first three surveys were completed in February 2012, 2013, and 2014. In this paper we provide results of the fourth survey in the time series. The objectives of this survey were: (1) To carry out a longline survey to monitor sub-adult toothfish in the southern Ross Sea (strata A–C) using standardised gear in a standardised manner; and (2) To sample additional experimental stations in an adjacent area to identify areas of high sub-adult abundance that could be included as strata in future annual surveys.

The 2015 survey was successful in completing all of the planned stations. Standardised catch rates of sub-adult (<110 cm) toothfish for the core strata showed a significant decline in this fourth year of the survey series. Age frequency data from the surveys have shown the progression of a cohort from age 7 in 2012 to age 9 in 2014 and to age 10 for females in 2015. The decline in the catch rates during the survey is consistent with the decline in the abundance of this cohort through time through mortality and the movement of older fish out of the core survey area, as well as the relatively weaker subsequent year classes. These results suggest that the surveys are indexing local abundance and will provide a reliable means of monitoring recruitment and estimating recruitment variability. Stations in the experimental stratum in Terra Nova Bay also had high catch rates of slightly larger sub-adult and adult fish, and warrant future monitoring. We recommend the survey be continued to provide information on year class strength and recruitment variability, and an index of local abundance to be incorporated in the stock assessment. 

In 2014, FSA-14-36r1 presented a new assessment of Patagonian toothfish in the French EEZ. A singularity in the tagging fits was observed by the working group. A lower number of recaptures in the first year compare to the second year was noted (figure1). This paper is an overview of tagging data in Kerguelen area and the impacts on the Casal assessment.

A multi-year, multi-member research program was established to map and sample the fishable areas of SSRUs 88.2 A–B north of 66° S latitude. During the 5^th - 7^th February 2015, the Norwegian fishing vessel FV Seljevær surveyed SSMRU 88.2 A, research block 3, defined in the multi-Member 88.2 offshore research survey. Bathymetric data were collected and longline fishing conducted to release tagged fish and collect information on the characteristics of the toothfish inhabiting the region. The vessel had a technical failure with the echosounder and bathymetry data are of low quality. The vessel set 5 longline sets with all vessel operations conforming to the required research criteria. A catch of 11 t of D mawsoni and 33 tagged fish released at 3.1 fish tagged per ton.

Toothfish in SSRUs 882.A–B are currently managed as part of the Ross Sea region stock, but the stock structure and fish movement patterns are uncertain and more information is required for the management across all of the region. Recognising this requirement, the Scientific Committee endorsed two years of spatially stratified longline surveys in the northern region of SSRUs 88.2A–B (SC-CAMLR XXXII, paragraph 3.76 (iv-c)). A multi-year, multi-Member research program was therefore established to map and sample the fishable areas of SSRUs 88.2 A–B north of 66° S latitude. Following its successful completion of the first part of the two year survey, this paper presents the details of the vessel that will conduct the second year of research and summarises the research plan, previously agreed at CCAMLR XXXIII.

During March-April 2015 Ukraine began the research within statistical subarea 48.2 in accordance with the recommendations of CCAMLR-XXXIII. The certain number of the following bottom long line surveys are proposed to be conducted during March-April 2016. The research surveys will be conducted by the Ukrainian flagged FV SIMEIZ. The data collected in first year of the research showed the possibility of demarcation of investigated area on two blocks - Northern and Southern by the Dissostichus spp. habitat. Proposed to change the design of the research survey to reach the purpose of 3-years investigation.

A multi-year plan for research by Japan and South Africa aimed at yielding a tag-based assessment of the Dissostichus resource in statistical Subarea 48.6 was adopted in 2012 and formulated in CM 41-04. This paper submits a work plan for the South African contribution to the fourth year of this research in 2015/16 and is to be read in conjunction with progress report.

The investigations in March-April 2015 were conducted in subarea 48.2 in accordance with the recommendations of the Commission (CCAMLR-XXXIII). Presented some preliminary scientific results of the research survey.

This paper provides an update on the ongoing FRDC-funded research project to develop robust assessment methods and harvest strategies for spatially complex, multi-jurisdictional toothfish fisheries. The project aims to develop a spatially-explicit model framework that captures the important spatial characteristics of current and historical fishing by France and Australia, and the underlying distribution, abundance and movement of toothfish on the Kerguelen Plateau, to enable complementary harvest strategies to be developed for the Australian and French fisheries, as well as develop tools that can be used to assist assessing other spatially structured fisheries.

We provide (1) an outline of the project objectives, and report progress on; 2) Modelling the spatial distribution of toothfish by their median length and sex ratio across the Kerguelen Plateau; 3) An analysis of the fishable area in the French and Australian exclusive economic zones (EEZs); 4) Improving tag-based estimates of fish movement parameters; and 5) Evaluating spatial bias on tag-based estimates of abundance. The project is progressing according to the proposed timetable, with the expectation that future assessments and data collection in the region will continue to be refined to account for the spatial structure of the stocks and fisheries in Divisions 58.5.1 and 58.5.2.

The purpose of this species identification illustrated guide is to facilitate by-catch species identification with real photographs in the Southern ocean. All of the photographs provided in this guide have been taken photographs by the author from aboard trawler (Target species : Euphausia superba) and longliner (Target species : Dissostichus spp.) of commercial fishery purposes in the Southern ocean. The author welcome notification of any errors or possible improvement to this publication. Welcome cooperation with interesting contributor and research body for development this guide.

The research fishing had conducted in Divisions 58.4.1 and 58.4.2 from 12 November 2014 to 24 March 2015. Total 9 species including D. mawsoni had occurred, and D. mawsoni were caught 4,016 individuals with 131,992 kg. The research fishing using tags were conducted according to the CCAMLR CM, and 706 individuals were tagged and released for tagging recovery. And both of tagging rate and tag overlap rate were over 5, and reached about 80%, respectively. To get biological information, it was examined length, weight, sex and gut contents of each individual. In addition, studies related on marine environment were conducted for sampling fishes and plankton, getting information through CTD (Micro CAT, SBE37SMP) and satellite archival tags (Mini-PAT). These surveys, however, had not been conducted continuously due to weather condition and freezing floating ice. While conducting surveys, one of nets for sampling plankton was lost, and CTD equipment was damaged. It is judged to need measures for supplementing equipment handling for continuous research fishing.