The assessment of the Patagonian toothfish (D. eleginoides) in Subarea 48.3 was updated with an additional year of data, and updates were made to the methodology for standardising CPUE and fitting to the survey. The updated assessment indicates that the current status of the stock is at 49% of B0 in 2024.
Alternative recruitment assumptions in projections were investigated, and the use of recruitment trends derived from the most recent 20 years of the survey is proposed. These projections indicate that a constant catch of 2,062 tonnes in the 2025 and 2026 seasons would be consistent with the CCAMLR decision rule after accounting for recent mammal depredation rates.
Based on this assessment, we propose two recommendations from Working Group FSA 2024 to the Scientific Committee:
- Future recruitment assumptions for the implementation of the CCAMLR decision rule should be based on the estimated recent recruitment (20 years) from the age 3 abundance in the survey abundance, and
- The catch limit for D. eleginoides in Subarea 48.3 should be set at 2,062 tonnes for 2025 and 2026 seasons.