Stock assessment for oceanic whitetip shark in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. 2019. Tremblay-Boyer, L., Carvalho, F., Neubauer, P. and Pilling, G.

Executive Summary

This is the second stock assessment for oceanic whitetip shark in the WCPO following that of Rice and Harley (2012), and the first since CMM2011-04 became active in 2013, enacting a no-retention measure for this species for WCPFC Members, Cooperating Non-Members and Participating Territories (CCMs). This assessment for oceanic whitetip shark was performed in the Stock Synthesis modelling framework (Methot Jr & Wetzel 2013), an integrated agestructured population model previously used to assess the status of sharks in the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere. The population dynamics model was informed by three sources of data: historical catches, time series of catch-per-unit-effort and length frequencies. We maintained the four-fleet structure used in the previous stock assessment, spli?ing the longline fishery into bycatch and target fleets, and the purse-seine fishery into fleets of associated and unassociated sets.