Demersal fish (hake)
The Group has developed and every four years updates the Management Procedure used to set catch limits for this fishery, whose value exceeds that of all the country's other fisheries combined. Another recent initiative is the extension of the hake assessment method to take explicit account of cannibalism and inter-species predation between the two species which comprise the hake resource.
Contributing Scientists: A. Ross-Gillespie, R. Rademeyer
Demersal fish (other)
Bases have been developed to provide advice on the catch limit for the midwater fishery for horse-mackerel, as well as on restrictions for the by-catch of juvenile horse-mackerel in the pelagic fishery on the west coast. Other important resources assessed include kingklip off South Africa, and toothfish off the Prince Edward Islands. Recently a Management Procedure has been developed to set catch limits for toothfish.
Contributing Scientists: A. Brandão, S. Johnston
Pelagic fish (anchovy, sardine, round herring)
The Group has developed and regularly updates the joint Management Procedure for the country's largest fishery in mass terms: the purse-seining of sardine and anchovy. This involves the translation of hydroacoustic estimates of abundance from research surveys into catch levels in a manner which attempts to regulate the by-catch of juvenile sardine (which shoals with anchovy) to allow an enhanced yield from such sardine captured later in life.
Contributing Scientists: C. de Moor
In-shore (abalone, rock lobster)
Management of the rock lobster resource off the West Coast has been rendered problematic by the onset of a period of slow growth of animals, whose continued duration cannot be predicted. Research aimed at developing a Management Procedure to regulate catch levels in a safe manner (given this uncertainty), and based primarily on the results of fishery-independent surveys of resource abundance and fishery catch rates resulted in the adoption of a series of Management Procedures for this fishery and for the South Coast rock lobster fishery. However, recent high levels of illegal catches have seen a reversion to an assessment basis to make TAC recommendations for the West Coast rock lobster as well as for the abalone fishery.
Contributing Scientists: S. Johnston, A. Brandão
Other areas
Sole and Monkfish are assessed collaboratively with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) scientists. Evaluations have been made of the extent to which the activities of the pelagic fishery may be inhibiting recovery of the highly depleted penguin population.
Contributing Scientists: J. Glazer (DFFE), A. Ross-Gillespie