Abstract

U.S. Fisheries have some of the strongest science-based management systems in the world. National Standard 1 (NS1) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that fishery management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield, and the NS 1 Guidelines establish a framework of reference points for evaluating stock status and identifying annual catch limits that achieve sustainability goals. In the most recent revisions to the NS1 guidelines (2016), allowance was made for flexibility in application of the guidelines in limited data-limited circumstances. NOAA Fisheries is currently developing technical guidance regarding this flexibility, and this presentation will present progress made on objectives to: identify best practices for adhering to the annual catch limit (ACL) framework with data-limited stocks; identify situations where the current ACL framework may not be appropriate due to data limitations; and provide examples of alternative methods. We focus on a few example case studies, evaluating the feasibility of managing data-limited fisheries under current catch-based management, primarily using the FishPath tool, and explore alternative options, including the use of rate-based or effort-based catch limits, as opposed to biomass based ACLs

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