Report of the working group on biology and assessment of deep-sea fisheries resources (WGDEEP), 28 March–5 April, Copenhagen, Denmark

WGDEEP, meeting in 2011 adopted a number of new working protocols in an attempt to address the problems encountered in 2010 (extremely long working hours and not all outputs reviewed in full plenary) and the general and stock-specific issues raised in last year’s RGDEEP technical review. The overall aim is to build a framework for the meeting in 2012 which is an advisory year (advice is not required in 2011). The MSY guidelines recently issued for data-poor stocks by WKFRAME were reviewed and likely suitable methods to be considered and addressed intersessionally were suggested and recorded on a stock by stock basis (see under Management Considerations for each stock). Regarding future Benchmark meetings, the Group recommended that there be no benchmark meetings for deep-water stocks in 2011 or 2012. Stock oordinators expressed the view that there were no stocks ready for benchmarking at the present time. Also a postponement will allow the methodologies urrently under trial/development in the EU FW7 DEEPFISHMAN project to be reviewed and, if appropriate, assimilated into stock assessments. Next year WGDEEP will discuss and make recommendations for stocks to be benchmarked in 2013