A model-based approach to estimate latent commercial cobia landings in Atlantic states, with implications for quota monitoring

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center is responsible for providing projections to the Southeast Regional Office (SERO) concerning when commercial Annual Catch Limit (ACL) fisheries in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are expected to reach their quotas. One of these fisheries is Atlantic Group Cobia, which encompasses state and federal waters from Georgia to New York, and has been managed by NMFS since 2015. Federal dealers are typically required to report purchases electronically, usually resulting in a relatively brief (roughly two week) time-lag between when fish were landed and when data become available to federal analysts. However, some states, such as Virginia, require reporting by fishers instead of dealers. In these cases, data are not available to the SEFSC until landings are incorporated by the Atlantic Coast Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP), which usually occurs in May of the following calendar year. Therefore, to provide accurate in-season closure projections, an approach is required to estimate real-time landings by accounting for landings that have occurred but are not yet known to SEFSC. This process can be especially impactful for Atlantic cobia, as the majority of landings occur in Virginia. The method presented here outlines the current process used by SEFSC to estimate these latent landings based only on available electronic dealer reports. 2019 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) SEFSC (Southeast Fisheries Science Center) Submitted https://doi.org/10.25923/k10g-5y39 Public Domain 1861