A Global Perspective on Fisheries

Management &
Science Requirements for the Next Decade

Steven Murawski
smurawski@usf.edu

National Press Foundation

9 July, 2018
St. Petersburg, FL
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 Overview

Overview of the state of  global fisheries with 
respect to food security, productivity, dependence 
and fish stock health

Discuss science needs for maintaining healthy 
stocks with respect to technological advances

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 Context: Fisheries Management is Important
 World Annual Seafood production (wild & aquaculture): 167.2 million
tons (93.4 million tons wild - static; 73.8 million tons aquaculture, -
increasing)
 20% of the world’s human population have fisheries as their major
source of protein
 Total USA Fish Catch (domestic = Landings in 2015: 9.6 billion
pounds (4.4 million metric tons), 1st Sale Value $5.3 b

 Total USA Recreational Fish Catch

(2016): 371 million fish, 61%
released, 9.6 million anglers

 Total Imported Seafood (2016):

$35.8 billion; Edible $19.5 billion
Average per capita consumption
(USA) 14.9 pounds

 Total USA Fisheries Sales $185

billion; 1.6 million American jobs
are fisheries-dependent
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Resources for Journalists
Food and Agriculture Organization if the UN
(FAO) Rome: SOFIA (every two years)
http://www.fao.org/fishery/sofia/en

United States:
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/resource/do
cument/fisheries-united-states-2016-report

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Source of North American Imports

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 State of Global Fisheries
Major US Importing Countries
China 22%
Thailand 14%
Canada 13%
Chile 6%
Indonesia 5%
Ecuador 4%
* Vietnam 4%
Others 32%
* * Failing 40%

** * *

Not honouring the code, Nature, Vol 457, Pitcher et al

Ecosystem Goal Team & Technology, Planning and Integration Program Office
 How Do We Define Sustainability?
Overfishing: The RATE of harvest (percent of the
stock removed by fishing) exceeds the pre-defined
maximum rate (generally about 20% per year is
sustainable)
Overfished: The current SIZE of the population is less
than ½ of the population size required to generate
maximum sustainable yields
If the rate of outflow exceeds the rate
of inflow, the use rate is not
sustainable

If the glass ½ full or less the water

supply is overused
Ecosystem Goal Team & Technology, Planning and Integration Program Office
 Defining Overfishing (rate) and Overfished Status (quantity)
2.0

1/2 B-MSY
1.5 overfishing overfishing
overfished not overfished
F / F-MSY

1.0
F-MSY

0.5
no overfishing no overfishing
overfished not overfished

0.0
0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00

Biomass / B-MSY
Ecosystem Goal Team & Technology, Planning and Integration Program Office
World-Wide Stock Status

From Worm, Hilborn et al.2009

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How are fishery resources
beyond national jurisdictions
managed?

So-called: BBNJ
(biological diversity of areas
beyond national jurisdiction -
BBNJ)

Regional Fishery Management

Organizations (RFMOs) n=18

USA Members of CCAMLR,

IATTC, ICCAT, IPHC, IWC,
NASCO, NAFO, NPAFC, PSC,
WCPFC, IPHC
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Red Snapper USA vs. Mexico
Why we need international coordination

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 Distant Water Fleets – 1960-1976
“….try to imagine a mobile and completely self-contained timber-cutting
machine that could smash through the roughest trails of forest, cut
down trees, mill them, and deliver consumer-ready lumber in half the
time of normal logging and milling operations. This was exactly what
factory trawlers did – this was exactly their effect – in the forests of
the deep. It could not long go unnoticed.”

Distant Water
William Warner
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Fisheries management has always had political interest….

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 But accomplishing important things has been bipartisan

President Bush signs reauthorization of the M-S FCMA in 2007

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 Summary
Global fisheries production from wild fisheries flat 
to declining
Far too many stocks are overexploited (overfishing+ 
overfished)
The USA and a few other countries are leaders in 
wild fisheries management and rebuilding
Imports swamp USA fish consumption (>90%); wild 
fisheries will never meet USA demand
Need for a sustainable aquaculture approach for 
USA to address trade imbalance, product integrity 
and sustaining working waterfronts 20
 Science Priorities for More Effective
smurawski@usf.edu MSA Implementation
• Address the backlog of “data‐poor” stocks –
assess everything more often

• Better understand the implications of climate 
variability/change and ecosystem processes 
on resource productivity and distribution

• Cheaper, faster, & better assessment methods 
(embrace new technologies, including AI,  
acoustics and optics and more capable ships)
 Making a Fish Stock
Assessment
SCIENTIFIC ADVICE

TRENDS IN CATCH AND TRENDS IN

RELATIVE ABUNDANCE RELATIVE
ABUNDANCE ABUNDANCE
PROJECTIONS
YIELD/RECRUIT
EVALUATION OF SSB/RECRUIT
MANAGEMENT

Fishery- OPTIONS
BIOLOGICAL
Fishery-
Independent ESTIMATE CURRENT
DATA
• GROWTH
• MORTALITY
Dependent
ABUNDANCE AND

Data FISHING MORTALITY

AT AGE (MODELS)
• etc.
Data
INDICES OF
INDICES OF
STOCK
CALIBRATION STOCK
ABUNDANCE
ABUNDANCE:
AND
CPUE/LANDINGS
RECRUITMENT HISTORICAL
ABUNDANCE AND
FISHING MORTALITY
AT AGE SEQUENTIAL
POPULATION
ANALYSIS
CATCH-AT-AGE
MATRIX
(NUMBERS)

• AGE-LENGTH KEY
• SIZE COMPOSITION FISHERY
• LENGTH/WEIGHT CATCHES

BIOLOGICAL OBSERVER
FISHERIES:
RESEARCH DATA SAMPLING
• GROWTH • LANDINGS
VESSEL •DISCARDS
• MORTALITY • EFFORT
SURVEYS •KEPT
• etc. • SAMPLING
 High-Resolution
Fishery-Dependent
Data

VMS Data can tell us 
where fishers fish….

But they are fused with 
lower  resolution 
productivity data from 
logbooks & observers
Traditional Fishery‐Independent 
survey methods aggregate 
species relationships and habitat 
associations over large scales

Longline Surveys: 
Typically
Set over several km

Trawl Survey Catch on Georges Bank

30 minute haul at 4.5 kn ~ 2
nautical miles
 Acoustics: where Have We Been?
W
h
e
r
e 
h
a
v
e 
W
e 
B
e
e
n
?

“I think it’s a biologic” 
(from “The Hunt for Red October”)
 Where are we now? Acoustic
estimates: ex. Gulf of Alaska Pollock
Spawning Stock Biomass
• Requires measures of target
strength (TS) & good
knowledge of the sampling
frame (spawning
aggregations are best)
• Mixed species aggregations
problematic and require
confirmation technology
• Line-transect methods
estimate summed density
along transect lines up-
weighted to total population
sizes
• Close to bottom is a “dead
zone” of acoustic echoes
Dorn et al. 2011. Assessment of the walleye pollock stock in the Gulf of Alaska
Emerging in situ and remote sensing 
approaches offer new insights into essence of 
ecological processes
Elbow, Hard Bottom Ridge
Using Advanced Optics & Acoustics

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 Multibeam
Mapping

The “Elbow”

Towed video
Real time monitoring
~10 m wide strip

Red Grouper in Hole
 Summary
 Effective management requires timely, accurate
and credible science inputs

 New advanced-technology approaches offer

timeliness, accuracy and precision but require up
front “critical mass” investments to move to
resource-wide scale programs

 Collaborative science among agencies, stake

holders and academics can be a powerful
collaboration leading to more efficient and effective
management