Draft data collection form for whale incidental mortality events in the krill trawl fishery

During its 2022 meeting, WG-IMAF noted the need to develop a data collection template and accompanying instructions for krill trawling vessels to report standardised data in the event of a whale mortality event. Independent of WG-IMAF discussions, the US Marine Mammal Commission generously provided to IWC-SC a potential data collection form for recording information on whale entanglements/entrapments; minor edits were then made during the 2023 meeting of the IWC-SC. The draft data collection form was provided to the Krill Observer Workshop (WS-KFO) to support any potential discussions around priorities for krill observers, and observer workload and safety. The suggestions made during WS-KFO have now been incorporated into the draft data collection form, which is now ready for consideration by WG-IMAF.