Methods of Improving Information Base 



The National Marine Fisheries Service 

 budget for stock assessment is $11.1 million 

 for fiscal 1978, up $2 million from fiscal 1977 

 with most of the increase needed to provide 

 information for management in the 200-mile 

 zone>8 The budget is projected to double in 

 the next 5 years, but this may not be sufficient. 

 The time and budget needs to provide addi- 

 tional information are enormous. Yet, while 

 such information may well become necessary 

 in the future, the immediate short-term needs 

 for assessment data are for use in designing 

 restoration strategies. Restoration does not 

 demand the same level of accuracy in assess- 

 ment data that is required for long-term 

 management. In the meantime, increased ac- 

 curacy of assessment data carries with it cost 

 implications that may be enormous; therefore, 

 it may be far more cost-effective to choose key 

 indicators upon which to make decisions with 

 all parties participating in those decisions 

 aware that, in the end, yield judgments will 

 remain judgments. 



It would be desirable to establish clear 

 research priorities for future stock assessment 

 efforts and to define the level of assessment 

 accuracy required for specific management 

 decisions. In addition, clear relationships need 

 to be established between fisheries stock 

 assessment and the needs of other Federal 

 agencies which are responsible for programs 

 which require environmental baseline data. 

 For example, the Department of the Interior 

 requires such information in regions that may 

 be leased for oil and gas development. If prop- 

 erly structured, much of the fisheries assess- 

 ment work could also be utilized for such pur- 

 poses and much of the duplication which now 

 occurs could be avoided. 



There are two basic problems which arise in 

 the consideration of how to proceed with 

 stock assessments: 69 



1. Because of the threatened status of many 

 marine stocks, much stock assessment in- 

 formation is needed for immediate short- 

 term management decisions. Therefore, 

 the pressures to expand existing assess- 

 ment methods are great. 



2. Fisheries managers have been pressured 

 to treat stock assessment information 

 with the same precision as other resource 

 managers treat their data. However, 

 while forest managers, for instance can 

 count the board feet of available timber, 

 fish populations cannot be counted with 

 such accuracy. Therefore, the new 

 pressures to determine sustainable yields 

 may require more precision than stock 

 assessments have delivered in the past or 

 can be expected to deliver in the future. 



These problems should be considered along 

 with two other facts i^o 



1. Assessment history has demonstrated 

 that existing methods have not been 

 properly validated, primarily due to in- 

 adequate data, even concerning those 

 species of traditional value to domestic 

 fishermen. 



2. The status of stocks — and, in fact, the pri- 

 mary motivation for extension of 

 jurisdiction — requires a reduction of fish- 

 ing pressure to the extent possible so that 

 the marine biomass can recover. 



79 



