Updated candidate MPs for Indian Ocean skipjack tuna

Work on an updated Management Procedure for Indian Ocean skipjack tuna has been ongoing
since 2019. The current phase of the work is from October 2023 to June 2024.
The overall objective is to:
• Develop a Management Procedure for Indian Ocean skipjack tuna, including specification
of the data inputs, that has been fully tested using a Management Strategy Simulation
framework.
Specific objectives defined at the 6th Session of the TCMP include:
1. Re-visit the possibility of using a model-based Management Procedure based on the
updated CPUE indices to be presented at WPTT25;
2. Propose a set of candidate Management Procedures to the TCMP (2024) for potential
adoption by the Commission.
Item (1) was addressed at the 25th Session of the IOTC-WPTT in October 2023, with evidence
presented that a model-based approach to setting management catch limits was not viable. At
the preceeding 14th Session of the IOTC-WPM, a further set of objectives for the work were
proposed:
4. Update the Operating Model to the most recent skipjack stock assessment, presented at
the 25th Session of the IOTC-WPTT in October 2023;
5. Impose a minimum recommended catch of approximately 66 thousand tonnes;
6. Include a temporal correlation in the projected recruitment timeseries;
7. Evaluate the effect of different catch change limits.
The current report provides a review of work to date, and proposed future directions, for
discussion by the TCMP.