2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Demersal and benthopelagic fish species, slope (>200 m)

Brief description

The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "State and Trend of demersal and benthopelagic fish species, slope (>200 m)".
***A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - Demersal and benthopelagic fish species, slope (>200 m)"***

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DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES/COMMUNITY FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT
This assessment will focus particularly on commercial stocks predominantly found >200m in the South East Region (SER) of Australia that are the most impacted by fishing and with the most comprehensive studies of stock status of key commercial populations. For western Australia, the catch in the Western Deepwater Trawl Fishery is small in comparison, with approximately 100t or less taken annually since 2003. Attempts have been made to be consistent in scope with the 2016 State of the Environment report. Most information available on the state and trends of demersal and benthopelagic fish species is derived from species-specific assessments of stock status that use information such as fishery surveys, catches, catch rates and associated biological data such as ages and lengths (note that sharks are also included in a separate assessment).

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
The data used for this assessment were largely derived from AFMA species specific stock assessment reports and the latest Fishery Status Report (Patterson et al., 2020).

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2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• 2021 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade: Adequate
Confidence trend: Adequate
Comparability: Comparable to the 2016 assessment
• 2016 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Adequate high-quality evidence or high level of consensus
Confidence trend: Adequate high-quality evidence or high level of consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are somewhat comparable to the 2011 assessment
• 2011 •
Assessment grade: Poor
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Adequate high-quality evidence or high level of consensus

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CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
The number of stocks in the benthopelagic region of the SER with over-fished status has remained the same between 2015 and 2019 (Patterson et al., 2020), leading to the ‘stable’ categorisation of trend (as opposed to ‘improving’ between 2011 and 2016). Between 2011 and 2016 some stocks moved from uncertain to not over-fished status (pink ling, ribaldo, ocean perch), leading to an improving status (Figure 8.3, Patterson et al., 2020). While the current status is stable, there remain a number of stocks with uncertain or over-fished stock-status in 2020 (gulper sharks, deepwater sharks, oreos, eastern gemfish, western and southern orange roughly). Management is actively engaging with stakeholders to improve the status of these stocks.

Lineage

Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT
The quality of information is generally good across the benthopelagic and demersal stocks considered here. There are uncertainties with regard to the data inputs to assessments, and the uncertainties and assumptions made in the assessment reports are documented.

Notes

Credit
Peer reviews of this assessment were provided by: Sandy Morison Malcolm Haddon (CSIRO)