ALLOCATION OF RESEARCH HAULS IN THE EXPLORATORY FISHERIES FOR DISSOSTICHUS SPP. IN SUBAREAS 48.6 AND 58.4 IN 2008/09

The Secretariat allocated research hauls for exploratory fisheries in Subareas 48.6 and 58.4 in 2008/09, following the Scientific Committee’s guidelines. Some modifications were required to account for SSRUs where fishing had not been previously reported, and SSRUs where the number of positions reported in the fine-scale catch and effort data were insufficient to allow a bootstrap allocation (without replacement) of 5 research hauls per stratum (fished and lightly fished/unfished) for each vessel. Where possible, start positions for 5 research hauls and 2 alternative positions per stratum were provided to each vessel in each SSRU (position separation distances 7-120 nmiles). A total of 1082 starting positions for research hauls were allocated to 13 vessels and 17 SSRUs in Subarea 48.6 and Divisions 58.4.1, 58.4.2, 58.4.3a and 58.4.3b. So far, four vessels (Banzare, Insung No.1, Insung No.22 and Shinsei Maru No.3) have conducted fishing activities in Subareas 48.6 and 58.4 in 2008/09. These vessels deployed 131 research hauls and each vessel completed 10 research hauls in each SSRU fished, with the exception of Insung No.1 (SSRU 5841C) and Shinsei Maru No.3 (SSRU 5842A) where the setting of research lines was terminated early due to the closure of those SSRUs. In 9 of the 14 sets of research lines deployed, the minimum mean distance between start positions was  2 nmiles from allocated positions. And in 11 of the 14 sets of research lines deployed, the minimum distance between research lines was > 5 nmiles (CM 41-01). Some vessels reported that they had been unable to reach the allocated positions due to sea-ice, and sea-ice had also caused difficulties in positioning alterative research lines.