2016 Assessment of the Arrowtooth Flounder Stock in the Gulf of Alaska
February 20, 2016
The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) stock is managed in Tier 3a and is assessed on a biennial basis to coincide with the annual GOA groundfish trawl survey. These surveys occur in odd years, and for these years a full assessment of arrowtooth flounder in the GOA area is conducted.
A single species projection model was used to predict the status of the GOA ATF stock for 2017 and 2018 and to calculate ABC for those years. The projection model incorporated parameter values from the 2015 assessment model (Spies et al. 2015) as well as catch information from 2015 and 2016.
Changes in the input data: The stock assessment model was not run for this update. New input data for the projection model consisted of the total catch for 2015 (19,054 t) and the current catch for 2016 (17,859 t as of October 21, 2016). Running the projection model to predict 2017 and 2018 ABC’s requires estimates for the total catches in 2016 and 2017. The final catch for 2016 was estimated by adding the average catch between October 21 and December 31 from the previous four years (2012-2015) to the 2016 catch through October 21, for a total of 21,080 t. The 2017 catch was estimated as the average catch over the past five years (2012-2016, utilizing the full year’s catch estimate for 2016), 23,720 t.