Stock Assessment of Bigeye Tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, Shelton Harley, Nick Davies, John Hampton, and Sam McKechnie. Oceanic Fisheries Programme. Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Noumea, New Caledonia.

This paper presents the 2014 assessment of bigeye tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean. This assessment is supported by several other analyses which are documented separately, but should be considered when reading this assessment as they underpin many of the fundamental inputs to the models. The updated assessment addresses many of the recommendations provided in the report of the “Independent Review of the 2011 bigeye tuna stock assessment” (Ianelli et al., 2012). Other key papers document: the methods used in producing the purse seine size data (Abascal et al. 2014) and catch estimates (Lawson 2013), longline size data (McKechnie 2014), longline CPUE data (McKechnie et al., 2014b), and tagging data (Berger et al. 2014); revisions to the fisheries and spatial definitions (McKechnie et al. 2014a); and the guidance of the Pre-Assessment Workshop (PAW) held in April, 2014 (SPC-OFP 2014).

This is the reference case scenario for Bigeye Tuna for the 2014 Stock Assessment.