The king crab Paralithodes camtschaticus in fact catch assessment on West Kamchatka in view of innovative approaches to stock abundance assessment and figuring out the TAC

Abstract

The in fact catch of king crab Paralithodes camtschaticus on the shelf of West Kamchatka was estimated from the official data about king crab import from Russia to Japan, South Korea, the USA and China. Despite significant reduction of IUU-fishing in recent years, the estimations on the in fact data and on the official commercial fishery statistics are visibly different on West Kamchatka. In order to figure out the TAC of king crab the in fact catch was used as one of basic parameter of model for stock abundance estimation and forecasting. It is concluded on summarizing the in fact catch values from custom surveys statistics by the countries importers of king crab and from the values of possible by-catch on the Danish seine fishery on West Kamchatka that in real the in fact catch of king crab is higher than Russian official statistical catch reported. Ignoring the data of the in fact catch of king crab in the process of stock abundance assessment or in forecasting commercial stock abundance results in underestimation of the values, causing a groundlessly low TAC. Critical analysis is provided for the West Kamchatkan king crab stock abundance and TAC assessment methods currently used. It is demonstrated, that the assessment model does not work correct to fit requirements in the Order № 104 by Rosrybolovstvo from 06.02.2015 “About providing materials of the TAC…”, and the error of the forecast, caused by the incorrect work of the model, demonstrates fluctuations within unacceptably wide margin.