Orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) acoustics

The SIOFA Scientific Committee (SC) is tasked to provide management advice for three important species (orange roughy, splendid alfonsino and Patagonian toothfish) to the Meeting of parties of SIOFA. CMM 2020/15 (paragraph 5) requires out that the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) stocks shall be assessed every three to five years. The first stock assessments of orange roughy were conducted in 2018 (Cordue 2018a, 2018b) and the second assessments were conducted in 2022 (Roa-Ureta 2022). The next stock assessment is scheduled for completion for SC10 in 2025.
Acoustic data are used as indices of abundance in SIOFA orange roughy stock assessments. As such, SIOFA requires the existing acoustic data that have been collected by commercial vessels fishing for orange roughy be collated, checked for quality control purposes, and then used to develop abundance estimates for the assessments.
The acoustic data between 2005 and 2023 are available (the 2023 data will be available by September 2023). The acoustic data for 2005-2021 were evaluated (Macaulay 2022a), processed (Macaulay 2022b), and used to derive acoustic biomass estimates for selected surveys between 2005 and 2021 (Macaulay 2022c), and used in the second orange roughy stock assessment (Roa-Ureta 2022).
This project requires acoustic data for years since 2021 to be described, analysed, and combined with data from 2005-2021 to provide a consistent time series of acoustic biomass estimates for the SIOFA orange roughy assessment areas. The outcomes of this work should be collated in a preliminary presentation for SC9 in 2024 and a final report for SC10 in 2025.