Stock assessment of bigeye tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean. N. Ducharmes-Barth, M. Vincent, J. Hampton, P. Hamer, P. Williams, G.Pilling. Oceanic Fisheries Programme, The Pacific Community.

This paper describes the 2020 stock assessment of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) in the western and central Pacific Ocean. A further three years of data were available since the last full stock assessment conducted in 2017 (that in 2018 being an update assessment), and the model extends through to the end of 2018. New developments to the stock assessment include:

• Addressing recommendations of the 2017 stock assessment report (McKechnie et al., 2017a), enhanced growth information through the addition of age-at-length information from smaller fish using daily ageing, and the integration of growth information from tag recaptures, as well as the implementation of the Richards growth model.
• Updates to the definition of reproductive potential
• Implementation of a composite "index" longline fishery for each model region which received that region's standardized CPUE index, and concurrently a \pseudo catch conditioned" approach was taken for the assessment

Based upon recommendations of SPC's 2020 pre-assessment workshop, only the 10° N spatial structure was considered within this assessment.