Using FADs to Develop Better Abundance Indices for Tropical Tuna

Through its Fishery Improvement Project (FIP), OPAGAC launched a research project with AZTI to support stock assessments for the Indian Ocean. OPAGAC is contributing to abundance indices development, both fishery dependent and independent, by providing its FAD data, which is necessary to support and improve the sustainable management of tropical tuna nowadays. For fishery dependent indices this includes catch and effort, sizes, and FAD density; and for fishery independent indices the acoustic records of beacons' echo sounders is provided. Additionally, to contribute to a more comprehensive study, a temporal data series was made available.