Report of the 2022 ICCAT Intersessional Meeting of the Sharks Species Group

Citation
Anon (2022) Report of the 2022 ICCAT Intersessional Meeting of the Sharks Species Group. Collect Vol Sci Pap ICCAT 79:61–132
Abstract

The Shark Species Group met online, May 16th-18th 2022. In addition to reviewing data, they reviewed activities under SRDCP including studies on age and growth of south Atlantic shortfin mako, electronic and conventional tagging activities, and post-release mortality shortfin mako in the Atlantic Ocean; they agreed it was important to do a thorough assessment of the achieved results of the SRDCP. The Group also discussed the draft workplan for 2023 blue shark stock assessment: the proposal for 2023 was to have the US lead the Northern stock assessment using Stock Synthesis (SS3); Brazil would lead the Southern Stock assessment using SS3. The Group reviewed shark bycatch species and adopted the updated Shark chapters on the ICCAT Manual. The Group also reviewed an updated analyses of shortfin mako genetic structure: it showed that there were three nuclear genome groups and the two mitochondrial. Finally, the Group discussed the ICES-ICCAT joint stock assessment for the North-eastern Atlantic porbeagle where they reviewed presentations of stock assessments and closed-loop simulations for the stock.