Eva Tallaksen of Undercurrent News reports that scientists are working around the clock in Copenhagen to possibly produce an abundance estimate of the Northeast Atlantic (NEA) mackerel stock, as an initial survey has pinned levels at a historical high, and more than 60% above last year’s estimates.
Some 40 scientists are currently crunching numbers in the Danish capital to figure out whether they can produce a reliable estimate of the stock that would give a basis for a 2014 quota advice from ICES, the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas.
If no reliable abundance estimate can be produced during the assessment meeting, researchers, as well as managers and fishermen, may have to wait until February 2014 before running a new mackerel assessment, Leif Nottestad, researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Marine Research (IMR), told Undercurrent News.
That is when two new methods used to evaluate the stock will be assessed by independent researchers from across the world, and hopefully be accepted as during the evaluation, he said.
One of these methods was used this summer, by a swept-area based pelagic trawl and ecosystem survey that covered 3.2 million square kilometers — roughly a third of Europe’s total surface area — with four vessels over five weeks. The survey’s results gauged that the mackerel stock is at 8.8 million metric tons.
This translates into “a record-high estimate for a population with [a] historically large extent”, said Nottestad.
It is also a leap from last year’s estimate, which pinned the biomass at 5.1m tons. The two estimates are not directly comparable, as this year’s survey covered more than twice the area covered last year. ”That said, there has probably also been a significant increase in the mackerel stock from 2012 to 2013.”