Publication Abstract

Productivity and Susceptibility Analysis: Application and suitability for data poor assessment of elasmobranchs in Northern European seas

Productivity and Susceptibility Analysis: Application and suitability for data poor assessment of elasmobranchs in Northern European seas

S.R. McCully*, F. Scott*, J.R. Ellis* and G.M. Pilling

National and European-wide shark conservation plans aim to manage elasmobranch stocks sustainably. However there has been limited success towards such targets, as a result of uncertainties and data deficiencies hampering traditional, quantitative assessment and thus effective and practicable management. To this end an assessment method (Productivity Susceptibility Analysis, PSA), was developed for elasmobranchs caught in four mixed fisheries in northern European shelf seas. In the pelagic ecosystem, porbeagle and shortfin mako were identified as the most vulnerable species, followed by two further commercially-important bycatch sharks (thresher and blue shark), and finally swordfish, a target teleost. In the demersal ecosystem, spurdog was found to be the most vulnerable species in both bottom trawl and set net fisheries. A further six elasmobranchs (including five batoids) and three teleosts (one target teleost) comprised the 10 most vulnerable species in bottom trawl fisheries, while in set net fisheries, 11 more elasmobranchs (including eight batoids) followed spurdog in the vulnerability ranking. These results are discussed in relation to commercially assessed species, included to ‘ground-truth’ the relative risk rankings and their conservation status through IUCN listings.

Reference:

S.R. McCully*, F. Scott*, J.R. Ellis* and G.M. Pilling (2013) Productivity and Susceptibility Analysis: Application and suitability for data poor assessment of elasmobranchs in Northern European seas. Collective Volume of Scientific Papers ICCAT, 69: 1679–1698.

S.R. McCully*, F. Scott*, J.R. Ellis* and G.M. Pilling

Collective Volume of Scientific Papers ICCAT, 69: 1679–1698.