Management Strategy Evaluations for Redfish in 3LN Division

There is an increasing demand for governments and regional fisheries management organisations to demonstrate that they are implementing sustainable fisheries management strategies in which fishery removals are adjusted with regard to changes in the magnitude and productivity of the fish stock being exploited. The aim of this study is to develop implementable sustainable exploitation strategies for the 3LN redfish stock following recommendations from a Scientific Council-Fisheries Commission working group on risk based management strategies. Several operating models developed in collaboration with fishery managers and industry were applied as a basis for simulation testing of candidate management strategies against the performance statistics. Our simulations account for observation error, process error, model uncertainty and implementation error. Following up with recent discussions within the NAFO fisheries commission, the main strategy to be evaluated is a steady increase of the TAC in the next few years. The objective is to assess the viability of such a strategy and evaluate the risk of seeing the stock falling below biological reference points. In addition, survey-based rules are tested to allow for adjustments on the steady TAC increase strategy in case the stock biomass is detected as declining suddenly.