Terms of Reference

Evaluating the Effects of Changes in Monitoring and Assessment Frequency on Management Advice for Canadian Fisheries

National Peer Review – National Capital Region

October 29-31, 2013
Ottawa, Ontario

Co-Chairs: Garry Stenson and Stephen Smith

Context

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is changing the way it will manage Canadian fisheries. As part of this process, DFO is implementing multi-year decision making about harvest levels for the majority of fisheries. DFO also faces multiple challenges to maintaining an adequate and balanced level of monitoring of stocks to support management needs, including the implementation of the Sustainable Fisheries Framework policies and tools. DFO scientists must consider how changes to the frequency of stock assessments and potential changes to monitoring (e.g. changes in frequency, intensity, methodology, etc.) could affect the ability to assess stock status and, in turn, provide advice to fisheries management. In particular, the new policy on multi-year science and fisheries management stipulates that multi-year fisheries plans, including ‘evergreen’ Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs), will be supported by multi-year science advice. This approach implies that during the interim years between stock assessments, the management of fisheries may be supported by the monitoring of key indicators and by pre-agreed harvest decision rules that adjust management measures, including catch levels, in response to changes in the indicators.

Moving to multi-year science advice will result in a change in the frequency of formal peer-reviewed stock assessments and may require scientists to identify key indicators that can be monitored during the intervening years. The impact of possible changes to survey frequency should also be considered since the fishery and stock monitoring data, assessment method and harvest decision rules interact in ways that are difficult to predict when examining each component independently. The impact these changes could have on the advice provided to fishery managers in a specific context will also be influenced by factors such as the quality of the fishery and stock monitoring data, current stock depletion, current stock trajectory, assumptions about future stock productivity and departures from advice during implementation.

TESA

The DFO Technical Expertise in Stock Assessment (TESA) program was created in 2008 to help rebuild capacity in fish stock assessment and to develop analytical approaches. The TESA program includes a Stock Assessment Methods Committee that provides review and advice on assessment issues. The TESA program offers a Stock Assessment Technical Training/Upgrading process by coordinating annual training and disseminating information to stock assessment practitioners. This National Advisory Process fulfills the TESA mandate to coordinate an annual National Stock Assessment Methods Workshop. The TESA program is led by a Steering Committee, currently chaired by Dr. Daniel Duplisea, one member from each region, a National Science Directors Committee (NSDC) champion and a Science manager.

Objectives

The objectives of this National Meeting are:

1. to provide guidance on the impact of assessment frequency on science advice to Fisheries Management on harvest levels for a variety of fish stocks by providing case studies to illustrate the important issues.
2. to provide guidance on the impact of changes in monitoring frequency and intensity for a variety of fish stocks by providing case studies to illustrate the important issues
3. to provide guidance on how to evaluate and interpret the effects of changes in the availability of stock indexing data, and the frequency of stock assessments, on harvest advice
4. to the extent possible, provide indications of the impacts on current harvest decision rules as a result of changes to other components of the management system.

Proposed Approach

The meeting will include both simulation-based and data-analytic methods for evaluating whether changes to the monitoring approach and frequency of assessments as described above compromise the achievement of conservation and/or yield objectives. Participants will be invited to present working papers that demonstrate the likely behaviour of management systems under various combinations of indexing and assessment frequencies for a range of life histories and stock conditions. In addition to simulation studies, working papers that utilize data-analytic methods will be encouraged, particularly when associated with case studies based on Canadian fisheries. Analysing the sensitivity of current assessment models to changes in monitoring frequency and/or intensity could form the basis of a case study.

One day of the meeting will be designed to introduce participants to a method that will allow them to investigate questions of interest using software specifically developed to demonstrate a feedback simulation approach to providing harvest advice as a result of changes in the design of the management system.

Guidance generated from the meeting will include conclusions that apply broadly across fisheries and recommendations on how methods presented at the meeting could be adapted to specific contexts and disseminated to practitioners.

Potential Presentation Topics

Some questions that presenters are encouraged to consider for the case study under consideration include:

1. Change in assessment frequency
   • What is the impact on the advice that can be provided?
   • How should the harvest control roles be modified?
   • What key indicators must be monitored (frequency and/or nature) in the intervening years?
   • What changes would be considered to trigger a new assessment?
     
     
2. Change in monitoring frequency and/or intensity
   • What are the impacts of changes in monitoring on the accuracy and precision of the population estimates?
   • What are the impacts on the scientific advice that can be provided?
   • What is the optimal period for monitoring and what characteristics of the species affect the frequency of monitoring required?
   • Are there other indicators that should be examined between major surveys? If so, at what frequency?

Expected publications

• Proceedings
• Research Document(s)

Participation

• DFO scientists from all regions
• Canadian and international academics