Stock assessment of skipjack tuna in the western and central Pacic Ocean, S. McKechnie, J Hampton, G. M. Pilling, N. Davies, Oceanic Fisheries Programme, The Pacic Community

Introduction

This paper presents the 2016 stock assessment of skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis; SKJ) in the western and central Pacic Ocean (WCPO; west of 150 W). Since 2000, the assessment has been conducted regularly and the most recent assessments are documented in Hoyle et al. (2010), Hoyle et al. (2011), and Rice et al. (2014). The independent review of the 2011 bigeye tuna assessment (Ianelli et al., 2012) made several recommendations that also improved the subsequent assessment of the WCPO skipjack stock (Rice et al., 2014). The current assessment continues the implementation of the review recommendations that have been facilitated by the ongoing development of the statistical stock assessment software, known as MULTIFAN-CL3 (MFCL; Fournier et al., 1998; Hampton and Fournier, 2001; Kleiber et al., 2014), that is used by the Pacic Community (SPC). Further developments to the stock assessment have been undertaken to address the recommendations of the 2014 stock assessment report (Rice et al., 2014), to explore uncertainties in the assessment model, particularly in response to the inclusion of additional years data, and to improve diagnostic weaknesses of previous assessments.

This is the reference case scenario for Skipjack Tuna for the 2016 Stock Assessment.