Update on IOTC Bigeye Tuna Management Procedure Evaluation March 2018

This paper summarizes progress on the development of Operating Models (OMs) and evaluation of candidate Management Procedures (MPs) for IOTC bigeye (BET) tuna. The BET MSE closely follows the approach developed for YFT (described in a companion paper), but due to time constraints and the prevailing perceptions of better stock status, no progress was made on BET for phase 2 prior to the 2017 IOTC WPTT/WPM meetings. Substantial restructuring of the BET Operating Models was recommended in the 2016 IOTC WPTT/WPM review, to recognize the substantial revision to the BET assessment, including new CPUE analyses, and spatial disaggregation to facilitate a more appropriate inclusion of the tagging data. The corresponding YFT document provides additional background information that is not repeated here.