Progress report for the inventory of Japanese commercial krill fishery datasets recorded from 1973 to 2012

Japan is a country with a long history of commercial fisheries targeting Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). While some datasets have been shared with CCAMLR, other datasets that may contain scientifically important information, have not been identified and analyzed. Reorganizing and digitalizing approximately 40 years (1973–2012) of datasets and sharing them with CCAMLR could provide new insights into the ecology and biology of krill, such as stock structure and the effects of climate change. As the starting point for the larger “Krill Stock Hypothesis Information Collection Plan” agreed upon by WG-EMM-2023 (paragraph 4.32 ), this report summarizes 40 years of data item lists from Japanese fishery logbooks to confirm whether all essential data have already been shared with CCAMLR. In addition, this report was prepared in order to request a standard data format be decided upon by the WG-EMM and priority given to advancing the digitalization of old fishery data.