Pelagic AC. Working Group II meeting 2nd October :30-18:00 hrs Parkhotel Den Haag Molenstraat 53. Participants.

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1 Pelagic AC meeting 2nd October :30-18:00 hrs Parkhotel Den Haag Molenstraat 53 The Netherlands Louis Braillelaan EK Zoetermeer The Netherlands Phone: +31 (0) Website: Participants Sean O Donoghue Esben Sverdrup-Jensen Alex Wiseman Andrew Campbell Arnout Langerak Aukje Coers Bart Adrienssens Basilo Otero Bent Pallisgaard Colm Lordan Claus Reedtz Sparrevohn Delphine Roncin Diederik Parlevliet Edward Farrell Eric Roeleveld Fabrizio Donatella Gerard van Balsfoort Geoffroy Dhellemmes Goncalo Carvalho Ian Gatt Irene Kingma Jerome Jourdain Jesper Raakjaer Killbegs Fishermen s Organisation Chairman Danmarks Pelagiske Producentorganisation SFF Marine Institute Cornelis Vroljik Cornelis Vroljik Swedish Agency for Marine & Water Management Federacion Provincial de Cofradia de Pescadores de Lugo Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark ICES Danmarks Pelagiske Producentorganisation From Nord Parlevliet en van der Plas University College Dublin Jaczon European Commission PFA/ Dutch Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association France Pelagique Sciaena Scottish Pelagic Fishermen s Association Dutch Elasmobranch Society UAPF University of Aalborg Page 1 of 19

2 Jessica Demblon John Ward Jose Beltran Justyna Zajchowska Katrina Borrow Leon Bouts Linda Planthof Ludmilla van der Meer Maarten Wegen Mads Larsson Marc Eskeland Martin Pastoors Michael Gras Mike Turenhout Miren Garmendia Patrick Murphy Piebe Hotsma Reine Johansson Rob Banning Stan Jonusas Thomas Brunel Verena Ohms Wietze Kampen European Bureau for Conservation & Development Irish Fish PO Organizacion de Productores de Pesqueros de Lugo The Pew Charitable Trusts Mindfully Wired Communications EFCA Seas at Risk Pelagic AC Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, Netherlands AIPCE EU Fishmeal Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association Marine Institute Visfederatie Opegui Irish South and West PO Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, Netherlands Swedish Pelagic Federation Parlevliet en van der Plas European Commission IMARES Pelagic AC European Transport Workers Federation 1. Opening of the meeting by the chairman, Sean O Donoghue The Chairman, Sean O Donoghue, welcomed participants in WG II, following the morning s WG I session. He noted that the group was running 90 minutes behind schedule, and would try and make up time across the session. Due to timing constraints for European Commission delegates, ICES advice on North East Atlantic mackerel had been presented during the morning s WG I session, and this would give 30mins time back to the WG II agenda, where this stock advice would normally be covered. 2. Adoption of the agenda The agenda was adopted without amendments. 3. Follow-up on action items Page 2 of 19

3 The most recent WG II meeting had been held in July of There were a number of general action points. The Pelagic AC was due to follow-up with ICES on action points from the annual MIACO meeting, held in January. Eskild Kirkegaard, ICES, had indicated these would be circulated with the minutes of the MIACO meeting. Colm Lordan, ICES, indicated that the report from the meeting had been very recently finalised and published. He offered to circulate this to the Pelagic AC. It had been agreed that, at the next MIACO meeting, action items would be listed and confirmed during the course of the meeting itself. This was considered a progressive step. The Pelagic AC sought clarification on the rationale behind moving of a specific sentence on the protection of herring spawning grounds within ICES herring advice. This followed concern that this represented a down-grading of the importance of protecting spawning grounds. Colm Lordan responded on this issue: this was part of a wider streamlining initiative for single stock advice sheets, limited content to information that is solely related to each single stock. For mixed fisheries considerations, this information would be in a fisheries overview or an ecosystem overview. The Chairman indicated it would have been useful for ICES to issue a note, highlighting these changes, to reassure stakeholders this wasn t down-grading the issue. An action had been to draft internal guidelines on management strategies and rebuilding plans. A good discussion had been held on this during the July meeting. Goncalo Carvalhoand Martin Pastoors, had been tasked with drafting the guidelines, but had not been able to do in advance of the day s meeting. It was agreed they would work on some text for discussion at the next MIACO meeting, for further development and discussion at the Management Strategy Evaulation (MSE) workshop later in On specific stock-related actions, Ian Gatt, SPFA, had advocated that a management strategy on Irish sea herring be left on the list of actions to complete, even though it was difficult to make progress on this point as the main player in the fishery no longer attends AC meetings. It was agreed this would be left on as an action, but that there were other actions of higher priority. In the July meeting, the WG II Chairman had recommended to the Executive Committee that ICES MSY advice be followed for this species. On Celtic sea herring, a brief update would be provided during the meeting from Andrew Campbell of the Marine Institute, on when a recovery plan would be available for discussion. It was anticipated this would be at the February Pelagic AC meeting in A recommendation to follow ICES MSY advice on this species was presented at the July Executive Committee meeting. A further action item on Celtic sea herring had been to learn from ICES whether some year classes had disappeared from the assessment on this species. There was no available update on this action, and it was carried forward. On herring in 6a and 7b,c, the action items were to continue with the genetic acoustic and morphometric research. This was ongoing and active, with an update scheduled for the day s meeting. A further action had been to see genetic sampling included in the Data Framework Regulation. The PELAGIC AC had received commitments from both Member States and the Commission on this. The Chairman asked for an update from a Commission representative. The Commission had been informed of this discussion, and was looking forwards to the results of the genetic sampling project. He said that on the basis of the results of the study, his colleagues would figure out an approach to the stock later in the year. The Chairman clarified that the action point was wider than just for Page 3 of 19

4 herring in 6a and 7b,c, it refers to including a requirement for genetic sampling in the data framework regulation as this is a delegated act, he felt this could be straightforward to achieve, if the willingness was there. This was left on the list as a future action on which to follow-up. TAC advice would be dealt with during the course of the day s meeting. Another action on this species had been to draft a briefing paper for DG Research on the genetics sampling project. This, alongside confirming DG Research attendance at a future PELAGIC AC meeting, was left on the list as an action to pursue in February or April On boarfish, the group was to provide TAC advice for 2019 during the day s meeting. The group was also due to continue work on an assessment model for the species, alongside the Marine Institute in Ireland. On North East Atlantic mackerel, the group was to provide TAC advice for This was on the day s agenda, and would provide an opportunity to follow-up on mitigation measures for the fishery. Also on this species, the group had an action to look into the North Sea being included in the mackerel egg survey in This was characterised as a long running saga for the PELAGIC AC. The Chairman asked Martin Pastoors for an update. Pastoors indicated that for 2019 this would not be possible. Some work had already been carried out by Wageningen Marine Research in on the possibility of including the North Sea egg survey in the Western mackerel survey. He had recently had discussions with colleagues on the idea of working towards this, but it would not be possible in The Chairman was disappointed. He could not see any barriers other than resourcing. Pastoors commented that there was a lack of available experts to drive the work forwards and a lack of vessel capacity to carry out a combined survey in the North Sea and Western area. He suggested a two-year lead-in time. The Chairman reminded the group that the PELAGIC AC had been exploring this issue for six years. This action would be carried forward. On Southern horse mackerel, TAC advice would be provided during the day s meeting. The Chairman commented that there was a major issue with what happened to the ICES approved management strategy for this t species and why it was not used to give the ICES advice. A number of actions were listed for Western horse mackerel. One was to develop a recovery plan and MSE and to send this to ICES. Significant progress had been made, and the Executive Committee had approved a mandate for the Focus Group to proceed with submitting both items. Martin Pastoors would provide an update on this front. Both the stock ID project and the PFA project were ongoing, and updates would be provided during the meeting. TAC advice would also be provided. On control, it had been agreed that a new Focus Group meeting would be established to discuss the Commission s proposals for a new control regulation. A date had been fixed for the meeting: the 7 th December in Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. 4. Fishing opportunities for 2019: presentation of ICES advice by Colm Lordan The Chairman noted that there were two main stocks left to cover, in terms of advice for 2019: Western horse mackerel and Southern horse mackerel. Boarfish was rolling over into the second year of two-year advice, and scientific advice for herring stocks had been covered at the PELAGIC AC July meeting. He gave the floor to Colm Lordan, ICES. Page 4 of 19

5 Mackerel The advice on Mackerel was dealt with at WG I to accommodate Fabrizio Donatella from European Commission but the minutes are included in WG II for ease of reference. There was nearly 7 million tons of catch of this species in Discards were at less than 3%. The majority of catches were taken in pelagic fisheries 80% from pelagic trawls, 9% from purse seines and 1% from others. Over the past several years, there has been a geographical expansion of the fishery in the Summer time, in the northern area. Since 2010 over half of the catch has been taken in Q3 of the year. In terms of the assessment: catches have been at around 1 million tons in the last 4-5 years. Recruitment in is quite weak. Fishing mortality has been increasing over the last several years, and SSB peaked in 2011 and has started to decline. In terms of stock status, it is just below Btrigger in In terms of assessment quality, there was a lot of discussion in the expert group about year to year changes in assessment output. This assessment was developed during a benchmark in 2017, using a new statistical model called SAM. Quite a deviation in terms of SSB is evident here, in comparison to last year s assessment. Recent recruitment estimates are very uncertain. There are several short timeseries in the recruitment model, and the inclusions of data from radio frequency tags was found to be very influential in this year s assessment model. So much discussion on quality had been generated around this, that an inter-benchmark had been recommended for early 2019, to explore the weight of tagging data and other information going into the model. 15 separate points had been highlighted for examination, to try and improve the model before 2019 s assessment. With that said, Lordan noted that trends in terms of SSB are within the confidence intervals of previous assessments. The signal trend with SSB is a decrease, this is estimated to continue with weaker year classes entering in the next year. Final advice for the stock is for 318,000 tons, which is nearly a 43% decrease in advice given last year. 70% reduction in catch compared to assumed catch in 2018, this is a very large change in advice. Sean O Donoghue, chairing this portion of the meeting as WG II Chairman, opened the floor for questions and comments. Patrick Murphy asked whether ICES had tested whether the new model would alter the previous year s advice. Lordan said the assessment was consistent with last year s, but when one additional year s data was added a downwards revision was seen in terms of perception of stock size. The root of this has been found to be the tagging data used in the model. Gerard van Balsfoort noted the industry s shock at the advice. He had a number of questions around the tagging data. Firstly, the apparent mortality rate of tagged mackerel appears inexplicably high around 90%. He asked if there were doubts about the quality of the tagging data, and if yes, why was the conclusion the keep these data in the assessment? Because ICES confirmed that the tagging data have driven the assessment and therefore has led to the huge negative advice. Finally, he noted that the PELAGIC AC has previously asked ICES to set up an internal quality assurance mechanism. He said that had been taken on board but asked how this had been applied to the tagging data had there been a quality check? Lordan said there was a lot of information in the ICES WG report about the tagging data, and the analysis carried out on that data. A recommendation has now come from the expert group for this species, supported by the ADG, to develop an expert group on tagging data this group was evolving. This group would be set up and would look at input for the assessment. In terms of broader quality assurance work, a lot of progress has taken place in the past two years, but there has been a struggle to dedicate adequate resources to this. Commitment is needed from scientists and institutions within Member States to back-up quality assurance work carried out by ICES. He noted that the benchmark process has been criticised by clients and stakeholders, these criticisms had been taken on board. ICES is trying to move towards a new benchmark model, whereby the process is started with a Page 5 of 19

6 broader scoping exercise, to identify research needs and information gaps around stocks, and set up specific projects and processes around those gaps. This would be an altogether longer process. These discussions have also incorporated conversations around stability of advice and possible stability mechanisms to reduce large-scale, short-term changes and impact on industry. Any resulting measures are not yet in place. On tagging data, the reason this was kept in the model was because the experts wanted to follow the benchmark procedures, and were trying to understand the influence of tagging data on the assessment. No conclusion had been reached on this at the end of the WG. He invited his colleague, Thomas Brunel from IMARES, to add any further comments. Brunel said he had summarised well, saying it wouldn t be usual to drop a whole time-series from an assessment, but that scientists involved are becoming more aware of the influence of tagging data on the assessment. The high levels of mortality can t yet be fully explained this is likely to be a mix of actual mortality and problems in detecting the fish, or with loss of tags. Mortality may also continue over time fish could die several years after tagging, and the model doesn t yet account for this. He concluded there were a number of things to re-visit or investigate. Esben Sverdrup-Jensen said the advice was even more disappointing due to the fact the industry had funded the tagging programme, not just in the EU but also in Norway and the Faroes, and because a first SSB result from the tagging programme of million tons was discounted as being unexpectedly high but unexpectedly low results are kept in. It had been hoped that the tagging programme could provide the industry with more stability and a higher quality assessment. It would be very difficult for fish processors to survive a cut of this magnitude. He went on to say that mackerel could be found everywhere in the Baltic, in the North Sea trawl survey, Greenland waters and Svalbard but that the advice suggests the stock is only marginally larger than North Sea herring, which is seen much less frequently, with lesser distribution, by industry. He suggested there was something fundamentally wrong with the assessment, and stated the advice was simply not believed by the fishing community. Colm Lordan responded that the northern ecosystem Summer survey had a higher estimate of SSB than is in the assessment presented, but that survey also showed a 40% reduction in SSB in One problem in assessing mackerel may be that the stock is so mobile and so widespread, making it very difficult to design surveys to contain the full distribution of the stock. When a stock is mobile, a lot of spatial changes in the distribution of the stock are seen, and this creates problems with perception of the stock size. He added that next year there would be additional information from a new mackerel egg survey, and that in future ICES should be able to stabilise and improve the survey with the tagging data. Reine Johansson, Swedish Pelagic Federation, asked Thomas Brunel to further describe discussions around inclusion of the tagging data. He noted that the difference between the advice with versus without the tagging data would have been significant shocking and asked how this decision was balanced. Brunel said the decision to include the data was taken in 2017, based on 2016 data, when the difference between the advice with versus without the tagging data was much smaller. This had been revisited this year, 2018, and the weight of the data was much more significant than had been realised, however this didn t mean it was a problematic data source. Methods had been determined in the benchmark for the species, and data types should not be removed from assessments because they indicate a downwards trend in biomass. A series of diagnostics had been carried out on all data and there was no particular warning sign on tagging data in comparison to other sources they are all treated as quite noisy. Page 6 of 19

7 Ian Gatt, SPFA, noted that Lordan s presentation had suggested the mackerel stock would continue to decline because of poor recruitment, and asked for evidence to support this. During the ecosystem survey, one finding was a big 2017 year class 150% larger than it has been before. He said this chimed with what fishermen are seeing on the grounds, and with the Western herring survey, where many juvenile mackerel were seen. The idea that the stock is declining relatively rapidly, and has been since 2011, is contrary to what fishermen have been seeing, and doesn t paint a credible picture when mackerel shoals are so large vessels are unable to fish the middle of a shoal. He called the advice some of the worst in recent times. Colm Lordan responded on mackerel recruitment, saying 2015 and 2016 are estimated as weak recruitment years forecast figures on recruitment are an assumption based on a weighted average. There is data from the IBTS survey that goes into the assessment, but this information hasn t been updated for several years, due to the quality of the data and quality of communication with those inputting data into DATRAS before using DATRAS data, dialogue is required with the submitting scientists regarding any data outliers, and this process has taken longer than it should have. Lordan said this should be resolved before Christmas 2018, and that index will be added into the assessment and provide better visibility on recruitment. In terms of the overall perception of decline of the stock, this had been driven by the age structure of the population sampled (calibrated to a certain extent by surveys and tagging information). There seems to be a signal in the age data that the stock is declining. Lordan accepted that industry finds this difficult to believe. Esben Sverdrup-Jensen asked if the inter-benchmark meeting planned for early 2019 might lead a revision of the advice, following the corrections of errors in the assessment. Lordan said the procedure is not to update advice. If an error detected, then advice will be corrected that goes without saying. ICES had been transparent in acknowledging errors in the past, and notifying clients and stakeholders of revisions. He said an inter-benchmark recommendation for a different weighting of the tagging data would be treated differently: the normal procedure would be to wait until the next round of advice. With all that said, he noted that ICES would respond to a special request from a client if there was one to update the mackerel advice, this would be acted upon, but this wouldn t happen automatically. Sean O Donoghue underlined the importance of mackerel as a stock to the members of the Pelagic AC, and had a number of questions to follow-up on: when the benchmark considered 2018 data, and the inclusion of RFID tagging data for the first time, why wasn t quality assurance carried out on that data at that time, rather than after the event? On recruitment, he reiterated the point that the Summer survey showed 2017 as the biggest incoming year class in the history of the survey. This is not yet in the assessment, but supports the view of industry that the picture of decline painted by ICES is not correct. The industry has invested enormous amounts of time and money on scientific surveys, often leading to major changes in advice. He questioned the quality of the model, and asked whether another major change may be in the pipeline. Lordan responded that there is a system in place to gather and look at the quality of tagging data. Acknowledging that the system can still be improved, he reiteration that, at this juncture, it s not possible to say there is a problem with the quality of the tagging data. The inter-benchmark will focus on the particular issue of tagging data, and its influence evolving over time, but it was not Lordan s impression that ICES would be moving away from the SAM assessment model used for the stock. In terms of recruitment, 2014 shows strong recruitment, shows low levels, levels are based on an average, not an actual measure. Data from the ecosystem survey shows 2017 year class index is strongest since the index was set up, indeed, but this is not going to feed-through into the population the short term. Page 7 of 19

8 Gerard van Balsfoort asked, hypothetically, if ICES removed the tagging data and SSB was assessed as being higher, what the impact would be on the advice. Lordan said the trend would still be declining stock size, but SSB would increase in the past few years. In terms of advice, the current advice reflects the stock dropping below Btrigger. This reduction wouldn t be seen in van Balsfoort s hypothetical scenario, so overall catch size would be significantly bigger. Goncalo Carvalho, Sciaena, remarked that he sympathised with questions around uncertainty of data, but asked the group to bear in mind that mackerel has been fished beyond scientific advice a lot in recent years. He said that this is a stock that has been severely over-fished, and this was worth adding in to the discussion. Western Horse mackerel The fishery predominantly takes place North and West of Ireland in Q1. 47% of the catch is taken there during that period. In Q4, 28% of the catch is taken from a much wider area, distributed across the northern North Sea and the Channel. The total catch is 82,000 tons, with the majority taken by pelagic trawls. There are around 3-4,000 tons of discards in the fishery. In terms of stock status, the catch had declined in recent years and fishing mortality estimates had also decreased. Fishing mortality was now well below the MSY trigger point, indicating that the stock is exploited sustainably. In terms of recruitment, since 2011 there have been several reasonable year classes that will feed into SSB in the near-term and will increase the stock size in the short-term. Assessment for this stock was bench-marked in 2017, using stock synthesis, length and age data, new survey data, egg survey data, index from the IBTS survey, acoustic data from area 8c. New reference points were established. At that point, the assessment was classified as category 1. Lordan did note that there was a bias problem with the assessment different to the bias normally seen in assessments, with SSB having been up-scaled considerably in the most recent assessment, and mortality revised down. He commented that this bias may come from the impact of revised reference points. Moving on to the actual advice for 2019, Lordan stated it is for 145,000 tons a 24% increase on advice given previously. The stock size is expected to increase by 5% based on incoming recruitment. Last year the ICES MSY rule had been applied, but projected stock size increases meant that there is no need for this to apply for Gerard van Balsfoort commented that, across his career in the fisheries sector, the surprises get bigger and bigger, both negative and positive. He underscored his surprise at the size of the Western horse mackerel TAC in comparison to the TAC for North East Atlantic mackerel (hereafter, simply: mackerel ). He said fleets are struggling to find Western horse mackerel, whereas with mackerel fleets are able to scoop up as much as they want within quota. He characterised the advice as illogical, and as detrimental to the credibility of ICES. On Western horse mackerel, he said vessels had taken 82,000 tons last year and he couldn t foresee them almost doubling this in Lordan said the advice had been developed by following procedure and it was formulated on the frameworks ICES uses. He agreed that, from an external perspective, he could understand people may scratch their heads and consider it not to make sense. ICES had investigated the impact on the advice of looking at the stock as category 2, rather than category 1, and this reduced the advice by just 10%. He said there is a signal of strong incoming recruitment, and that it is driving the advice given. Patrick Murphy, Irish South and West PO, asked if, based on what had been heard earlier in the day on mackerel, a tagging programme in the fishery would radically alter the substance of the advice. He suggested that un-caught quota in the fishery was leading to a bias in the advice. Lordan responded that the model used assumes full quota will be caught in If the quota wasn t caught in 2018, a larger increase in the advice would be given. On tagging data, he commented that adding different Page 8 of 19

9 data into the model would naturally lead to a different result. ICES tries to arrive at a model that is a stable and robust basis for giving advice on individual stocks. Esben Sverdrup-Jensen reiterated that he didn t believe in the mackerel advice and his members could not see the trends reflected in the advice. He said the same applied to this stock: his members could not catch the quota for Western horse mackerel, the stock was not concentrated in the way it used to be. Whilst the advice for mackerel was too negative, he considered this advice to be too positive. Sean O Donoghue agreed. Considerable efforts had been devoted to the management strategy for this stock, and he considered that those efforts needed to be redoubled. One point on the advice he did concur with, however, was on juvenile recruitment. This had been witnessed by members of the Irish industry. Claus Reedtz Sparrevohn asked if an inter-bench-mark would take place for horse mackerel. Lordan said this had not been decided. He added that he would follow-up with ICES colleagues from the relevant WGs and see if there was a basis for an inter-benchmark. Miren Garmendia, Opegui, stated that the fleet she represents concentrates on mackerel and horse mackerel. She noted absolute surprise at the advice given. Most of the fleet finds mackerel easy to fish but horse mackerel difficult to find. The fleet would not meet the quota for 2018 for this species. She echoed Gerard s sentiments: encouraging ICES to listen to the industry and re-evaluate. Jose Beltran, Organization de Productores de Pesqueros de Lugo, concurred. He said the advice was like a lottery, the industry doesn t know what it is facing each time. He said that fishermen survey the sea every day and were finding it impossible to avoid catching mackerel, but added that his fleet won t be fishing the horse mackerel. Sean O Donoghue thanked him and others for their views, and remarked that the industry was clearly sharing a standpoint on these two stocks. Southern horse mackerel Colm Lordan continued on to Southern horse mackerel. The stock has been below FMSY for the entire time series, and the SSB well above MSY Btrigger for the entire time series. He said this was due to a recent period of strong recruitment, feeding into the stock and causing it to increase. The catch of this species in 2017 was nearly 37,000 tons, mainly taken by purse seines. Discarding was assessed to be negligible. The stock had been bench-marked in 2017 and this did not change the perception of the stock. However, he said that the latest assessment was quite uncertain. The last assessment has significantly up-scaled SSB and down-scaled fishing mortality estimates. Recruitment for the stock going forwards was very uncertain. Advice for 2019 is given based on the ICES FMSY approach. Because the stock has been below MSY, this implies a large change in catch advice, to up 94,017ons in 2019, representing a 154% increase in the TAC. There is also a management strategy for this stock, which would give catch of 46,368 tons in 2019, a 26% increase in catches on The Chairman asked why ICES had not used the management strategy, published on the 23 rd of March and deemed as precautionary, and the harvest control rules (HCRs) consistent with that plan in generating this advice. He remarked that is was incredible the plan had not been used, after the hard work by members of the Pelagic AC and others. Lordan said the decision was based on a request from the Commission. The Chairman asked the Commission to respond, to which Commission responded that, with the management strategy being delivered in March, it was possible that there had not been enough time to take this into account when the administrative agreement was being drafted and agreed between ICES and DG MARE. Goncalo Carvalho said it was frustrating to see that the final advice for the species was not based on Page 9 of 19

10 the agreed long-term management strategy, particularly when NGOs and industry had collaborated so successful on developing the plan. He said that the need for stability in management can only be answered by such a plan. The Chairman agreed that this was disappointing, noting that there had been a similar incident with a Celtic sea long-term management plan, which is now defunct. It was a total surprise that ICES advice for this stock should be based on the ICES MSY rule. He said the PELAGIC AC could still rectify the situation through recommendations for next year s advice. Boarfish Lordan used the previous year s slides for boarfish, as this advice was given for a 2 year period. The catch for this species should be less than 21,800 tons. Sean O Donoghue noted that the 2018 survey was very similar to the 2017 survey, commenting that this suggested the 2016 survey had been an outlier. Recommendations on stocks 5. North East Atlantic mackerel Recommendations A lengthy discussion had already taken place on issues at WG1 related to mackerel advice. The Chairman provided a number of draft recommendations on the advice for the group to consider. These recommendations focused on the idea of addressing fundamental issues around the mackerel assessment, rather than focusing specifically on figures. He showed the group five draft recommendations: - A call for an immediate bench-mark on the subject of RFID tagging in the fishery; - A request to the meeting of Coastal States, to ask ICES to re-evaluate the assessment by removing RFID tagging data; - Use of the agreed three parties management strategy (ICES September 29, 2018) once the re-evaluation is complete; - Support the egg survey next year, and request the North Sea component of this be included in 2019; - Landing Obligation for demersal species comes into play on 1 st January A close eye needs to be kept on high-risk species, as small amounts of demersal species as by-catch could close pelagic fisheries, so choke mitigation measures should be followed-up on. Goncalo Carvalho asked for a clarification on whether a full inter-benchmark was being proposed, or solely one on tagging. The Chairman responded that he was interested in a full benchmark, but the main issue and immediate priority was the tagging data. Colm Lordan commented that the interbenchmark scheduled for February 2019 would focus on 15 specific issues, mainly around the tagging data. The Chairman said that the recommendation s wording could be changed to say and other issues. Thomas Brunel, Wageningen University, said that removing RFID tagging is not a goal of the interbenchmark itself. The goal would be to help the model incorporate the data in a better way than it is currently. The Chairman agreed with this, adding that his wording was designed to address the timing issue with the Coastal States meeting the following week they would need to make a decision in the next few months for next year. His wording for the first and second recommendations reflected the urgency of the timing issue. Page 10 of 19

11 Justyna Zajchowska, Pew, asked the Chairman to elaborate on the third recommendation, pertaining to use of the management strategy. He responded that last year, the Pelagic AC had encouraged the three parties EU, Norway, Faroe Islands - to agree on a management strategy. This had been agreed and deemed precautionary by ICES. He suggested that this should be the plan used to manage the stock, once the tagging issue has been resolved. He said the industry could not wait for the February inter-benchmark meeting, hence the wording of the first three recommendations. Jose Beltran added that it should also be made clear that the industry does not agree with the TAC proposed that is reflected a solely biological proposal, with no accounting for socio-economic impacts. He added the Pelagic AC should show strength by showing their lack of satisfaction with the advice, as well as a series of points to re-address. The Chairman understood this angle, but said he was trying to tackle the issue from a scientific perspective, highlighting the problem with the tagging data. He said Beltran was 100% correct, but he would prefer not to go into a critique of the figures. Gerard van Balsfoort appreciated and supports the drive towards a consensus approach, but felt the recommendations did not reflect the level of disbelief amongst industry members of the PELAGIC AC. He asked for a sentence to be included at the beginning of the recommendations, to reflect this. The Chairman suggested an addition of: in light of the advice, the PELAGIC AC considers there is a major issue around RFID tagging data. Esben Sverdrup-Jensen concurred. Goncalo Carvalho asked a question about the third recommendation: his understanding was that there had not been a final agreement on a three parties management strategy for the stock. Several options had been evaluated by ICES, but none that met the full CFP requirements with adequate HCRs agreed by the Coastal States. On the rest of the recommendations, he suggested some separate bullets some OIG bullets and some industry bullets to cover all views. He said this had been done in some recent SWWAC advice. The Chairman said he was anxious to maintain the tradition of solidarity in PELAGIC AC advice. On the management plan, he explained that the three parties (EU, Norway, Faroe Islands) had agreed in 2017, and it had been evaluated as precautionary by ICES, but it hadn t been used by ICES in giving its topline advice but was included in the catch options table because all Coastal States did not sign-up to the plan.. It had subsequently been decided between the three parties that they would use the plan. On drafting of recommendations, he suggested that he work offline with industry and OIG members to re-work the text and hopefully present a consensus draft to the Executive Committee the next day. 6. Western horse mackerel Update from Focus Group Martin Pastoors provided an update on the Focus Group on this species. He described work underway to develop an HCR for this stock, which was underway in partnership with an organisation in Canada called Landmark Fisheries Research. He noted that the work was part of a long history of developing a management plan for horse mackerel, which had started in A full evaluation of management options for the stock had been carried out in 2015 and it was disappointing whatever rules were applied, on the basis of the assessment at that time, there was too high a risk of the stock dropping below Blim. He remarked that this was an interesting result in light of the advice on the stock given earlier in the day. These negative results blocked the development of a management plan at that time. The current situation is that the assessment is quite uncertain. There has been a new stock synthesis model, and re-scaling every year. He noted that because of the re-scaling and how reference points Page 11 of 19

12 are delivered, the stock is now close to Btrigger even though we are at the lowest point in relation to stock development. He characterised this a very strange. The FG had become interested in working with Landmark Fisheries Research to see if this organisation could bring some new light to the issues on the table. Work had been commissioned as a proof of concept to see how the issues could be approached. One of the key things to investigate was what would happen if a stock falls below Blim, and actions are taken other than implementing a zero TAC how can fisheries be maintained in the long-term and avoid closures? The FG, together with Landmark, had explored different reference points, investigating outcomes when these are set on a absolute scale or as a % of biomass. Findings suggested that even with a small recruitment scenario, stocks would be expected to increase in the short-to-medium term, ending up in catches of around 150,000 tons. This is based on the assessment as put forward by ICES, and it would take time to reach that figure. An interesting finding of the group s work had been to look at the effects of closures in the fishery on the type of data available upon which to conduct assessments. The conclusion had been that if closures are allowed for, data will deteriorate so much that it becomes impossible to detect what is going on with the stock. Pastoors said this was an important element to consider in talking about management advice, and this was a work stream the group wanted to develop further. It had been concluded by the FG that the proof of concept work was very useful, although it did not adequately take into account the uncertainty of the starting conditions, which needed to be improved. All of the HCRs tested lead to a recovery of the stock, and an increase in the stock under both recruitment scenarios tested. The speed of increase of the stock is sensitive to the reference points set. The next step was to work with Landmark to develop a full MSE with a number of different re-building requirements. The plan would be to develop a report of this additional work in time for a possible inter-benchmark on horse mackerel, and this would be submitted to ICES for review in January or February of The Chairman said the results were really encouraging. He hoped that when the 2019 meeting of WGWIDE took place, they would be in a position to use the management strategy produced by this work. Claus Reedtz Sparrevohn commented that a similar process was underway in the BSAC, and it may be that the BSAC engaged Landmark in the process too. Referring to an earlier debate, in WG I, on herring in the Baltic, he encouraged NGO representatives to participate and be part of focus groups. He said there were many questions were an NGO perspective would be valuable. Aukje Coers, Cornelis Vrolijk, said many aspects of the work were very interesting. She suggested that relative reference points could bring some stability to the advice. She asked whether Martin Pastoors would be bringing this work into wider ICES discussions on MSE, and suggested the work would be of value to those conversations. Pastoors said that contributing to ICES discussions on MSE was explicitly part of the second tranche of work agreed. An analyst from Landmark would also be invited to participate and present this work at ICES. Martin Pastoors went on to provide a brief update on self-sampling studies for horse mackerel. The objective of the work, gathering data directly from industry, was to provide additional information for the assessment on trends in the stock. Three data series were being used: written diaries from before 1989; a number of diaries captured in digital form; and a self-sampling programme which had been running since vessels are participating in the programme. The data gathered comprises of lists of catch composition, location, the date, time and amount of catch (in different units). A key question has been identifying the unit to measure: for example, catch per day or catch per week. Page 12 of 19

13 Searching time as well as fishing time needs to be accounted for. Statistical analysis had been carried out, exploring many variables, and eventually a picture of the fishery has been built up looking at the year, the vessel, the month, the ICES area, and day versus night. As each variable is added the catch per unit effort (CPUE) pattern changes. The emerging pattern shows variation over time, but a general decline in catches over the past few years. This work was close to being finalised. A PhD student from DTU Aqua was now contributing and helping to write the work up into a final report, exploring the main factors influencing catch rates. The overall trend for the fishery was stable, and somewhat declining after A potential question for the future was: how to deal with technical advances in capacity, eg. new sonar, new freezing capacity. The Chairman suggested Pastoors present again in February or April and provide the conclusion to this work. Gerard van Balsfoort remarked that he had seen the size of horse mackerel being sampled by the fleet: it was smaller, suggesting there is incoming recruitment. Presentation of preliminary results on genetic sampling Edward Farrell, University College Dublin, provided a presentation preliminary results from genetic sampling for horse mackerel. He cited stock identity issues with horse mackerel, and referenced a project, HOMSIR, which had worked to identify the stock. He said all current stock definitions are based on that research, and the aim of this new research was to check the stock boundaries, check the overall population structure and see if there was, in reality, three population which can be defined into three stocks. A pilot study was carried out in partnership with IMARES, including wide-scale sampling to get geographic and temporal coverage of spawning fish. A new method had been applied to sequence a draft genome for horse mackerel, and this had been whittled down to 84 microsatellite markers. A quality control had been carried out on these, identifying that some of these markers are not working. Thus far, 23 such markers have been genotyped, and a further 15 are expected to be genotyped. The more markers, the more power to detect genetic structure. To prove the strength of the markers, a sample of horse mackerel from North Africa had been included in analyses between sampled stocks. If the markers were functioning, these fish would clearly stand out when tested and they did. After African outlier samples, the second highest level of differentiation was found between the southern North Sea samples and all other samples. Through a process of grouping together samples that are and are not different from each other at the genetic level, ultimately different populations can be determined. At the moment in the research, only North Sea samples are standing out. These samples cluster tightly together (in the visualisation of the data). At the moment, no significant differentiation is seen between the Western samples and samples taken from ICES area 9a. With the addition of further microsatellite markers into the analysis, there will be increased power to detect variations between samples. Farrell noted a gap analysis on available data would also need to be carried out. The data would all be gathered and fully analysed by the end of The Chairman suggested he could return to the PELAGIC AC meeting in July on 2019 and present on progress. Martin Pastoors asked how Farrell would be dealing in future with samples taken in areas 7d and 7e (the Channel). He asked if the analysis could be used to detect the difference in populations fished in that area. Farrell said the baseline analysis needed to be concluded first, and then this question could be returned to. Pastoors commented that the initial results looked like there is Western horse Page 13 of 19

14 mackerel across the whole of the North East Atlantic, except for the North Sea. Farrell said it was too early to tell. Recommendations The Chairman noted that ICES MSY advice for the species suggested a 24% increase of 145,000 tons in comparison to 117,000 tons. Five recommendations were presented: - Follow MSY advice 2019 of 145,237; - To note a lack of confidence in the advice; - Considered the most important, to develop a management strategy for the stock. It is hoped this could be presented for use at WGWIDE in August 2019; - Continue genetics work, as stock ID is a huge issue; - Follow-up on choke mitigation measures; - Pursue an inter-benchmark for Western horse mackerel. Goncalo Carvalho said NGOs could not support the second bullet point, but he would understand the point being put forwards by industry. He again suggested separate bullets for OIGs and industry (on this stock and on the mackerel stock). The Chairman felt they would be able to reach a consensus text, asking if it would be acceptable if the bullet was worded industry participants note a lack of confidence. This was agreed by Gerard van Balsfoort and considered acceptable overall. Miren Garmendia supported the inclusion of these bullets for both mackerel and Western horse mackerel. 7. Southern horse mackerel The advice for Southern horse mackerel was to follow ICE MSY advice, rather than the management plan the Pelagic AC had put so much work into. The Chairman suggested the recommendations should be to follow the management strategy in the catch options table in the ICES advice document, which would set the TAC at 46,368. The Pelagic AC should also object to the Commission s use of MSY for the advice, and should furthermore follow-up on choke mitigation measures. Justyna Zajchowska said it was too early to send the second recommendation, that the Commission should be given time to check the rationale behind the decision. Goncalo Carvalho added it was to do with the specific terminology, that the OIGs would feel comfortable with questioning the Commission s decision, but not objecting to it. The Chairman agreed on this point. Carvalho also asked whether that point should be included in the TAC advice, or addressed separately in a letter to the Commission. The Chairman said this did not fit the usual MO. On a separate point, Carvalho pointed to a recommendation from ICES over the past years that a separation should be considered between the different horse mackerel species on the TAC. The heard scientists had suggested that up to 10% of samples indicated other species. He asked if, if this was accurate and a separation within the TAC would lead to more accurate advice., This is something the PELAGIC AC should pursue. The Chairman asked him to draft a recommendation on this front. It was agreed that Jose Beltran would liaise with Carvalho on this issue. 8. Boarfish The suggested recommendation for boarfish was to continue following ICES advice, set at 21,380 tons. An outstanding issue to be resolved was the fact that the TAC for 2018 had been set at 20,380. Page 14 of 19

15 The Chairman queried if this may have simply been an administrative error. The Commission agreed to look into this missing 1,000 tons. The Pelagic AC would continue working on an assessment for the species, although there was an ongoing issue with the North Western waters Member State group proving a barrier to this. Finally, choke mitigation measures would be followed-up. 9. Herring in 6a and 7b,c Update on results from stock identification project An update was provided from Edward Farrell on the latest results on a stock ID project for 6a herring, looking at the differentiation between 6a north and 6a south stocks, as well as stocks in 7b,c. The first two phases on the project had been funded by industry, and the research was now into a European Commission funded phase, looking at the genetics and morphometrics of the stock. The definition of herring stocks is based on geographic and temporal location at spawning, but whilst stocks spawn differently, they mix during feeding time in Summer. Extensive sampling had taken place since 2014, using two markers: microsatellites and SNPs. Samples from 2003 and 2004 had also been used to look back in time at the stock. Samples indicated that 6a north and North Sea fish were very similar. They were clustered tightly together on the genetic tree. Celtic sea and Irish sea fish also clustered, with Irish sea fish being more similar to Celtic fish than they are to fish in 6a north. Three samples stood out. Spring spawners from 6a north were showing up as distinct to other fish. In with those was a small sample of spring-spawning fish taken from the Clyde in Winter spawning fish from the Downs were also showing as distinct. High variability was noted in in 6a south fish. They were very different to northern counterparts. Farrell queried whether these differences are purely related to spawning time. Based on other samples, a geographic trend was suggested as well as a trend related to spawning time. Conclusion findings from the project so far were that the patterns identified were highly temporally stable. Samples showed, that the 6a north Autumn spawners and 6a south and 7b,c fish are certainly two genetically distinct populations. 6a north Spring spawners are also very distinct. Further work would be needed to explain the variation in 6a south species. The data so far indicated this was a variation within the population, related to when the fish spawn. Further sampling would be undertaken to look into this in more detail. The sample from the Downs was also significantly different and would need further investigation. A next step would be to start morphometric analysis of stocks, and to compare this with the genetic work. Sample gaps also needed to be filled. The Chairman thanked Farrell and said he looked forwards to the day when there was sufficient information for a benchmark on the species. Update on 6a north herring survey A brief update on the 6a north herring survey was then provided by Martin Pastoors. The survey had been carried out for its third year, with three vessels carrying out the acoustic survey. This year they had been asked to cover the whole survey area, one by one, taking a week each and directly behind each other. In addition to the acoustic survey, one vessel carries out morphometric and genetic sample and two do commercial catch sampling and genetics. This started on the 27 th August in 2018, and was still underway at the time of the meeting. Initial indications from the survey suggested that there was some very young herring mixed in with sprat and lots of small mackerel all over the survey area. During the third acoustic survey, some spawning herring had been picked up but in much smaller concentrations that in previous years. Spawning was also observed as being later than in Page 15 of 19