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Research Document 2019/013

Unified framework for the statistical assessment of fishery monitoring programs

By Allard, J, and Benoît, H.P.

Abstract

Many monitoring programs are employed across the numerous and diverse fisheries in Canada to estimate parameters that are used directly in fishery management or are used to produce scientific advice for the sustainable management of fisheries. These parameters include catch amounts or catch rates for targeted and incidentally captured species, catch composition (e.g., size composition, percentage of soft-shelled crustaceans) and fishing effort. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is currently finalizing a national fishery monitoring policy to ensure that it has dependable, timely and accessible information on fisheries to manage them sustainably and to ensure a unified approach for setting the type and degree of monitoring employed across fisheries nationwide. This report presents an important component for the implementation of the new policy: a unified framework to evaluate the quality (how close a parameter estimate is to the true value) and dependability (ability of an estimation process to achieve its intended objectives) of DFO’s fishery monitoring programs. Quality and dependability are affected by statistical characteristics of the monitoring program design and by operational characteristics which result in deliberate or unintentional differences between the implementation of the program and the program design, or which contribute data errors (e.g., measurement, data handling and modelling errors). The proposed assessment framework accounts for statistical and operational characteristics of a program and can be implemented using quantitative data and expert opinion. It is structured and founded on statistical concepts which are used heuristically to ensure consistent application and rigor. Furthermore, the framework is applicable to parameter estimations that are used directly (e.g., catch amounts for stock assessment purposes) or that are used to gauge compliance with respect to some limit (e.g., fulfillment of a quota or achievement of a bycatch limit). The goal for this report is to provide the details of and relevant justifications for the proposed assessment framework. Technical details are provided only where they are required; however, this report is not meant to be a user’s guide and a separate document will therefore be required for the implementation of the proposed assessment framework.

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