Species composition in the USA purse seine fishery as estimated by logsheets and cannery receipts

This paper provides a preliminary analysis on the potential use of cannery receipt data for estimating species composition in the USA western Pacific purse seine fishery. Total tuna catches recorded on logsheets by year were very close (0.5% more in 2014 and 2.8% more in 2015) to those shown by cannery receipts indicating that vessel operators accurately record total catches on daily logsheets. Species composition differed with cannery receipts having a lower percentage of skipjack and higher percentages of both yellowfin and bigeye tuna than reported on logsheets. Cannery data provide catch by species and size categories, and annual trends are illustrated for 2014 and 2015 for size categories of <3 lbs (<1.4 kgs), 3.0-7.5 lbs (1.4-1.8 kgs), 4.0-7.5 lbs (1.8-3.4 kgs), 7.5-20 lbs (3.4-9.1 kgs), and 20 lbs and up (9 or 10 kgs and up). Cannery catches for the USA western Pacific purse seine fleet were compared to SPC-OFP (2016) catch estimates which are conducted with a full species adjustment using observer sampling data corrected for grab sample selection. The SPC-OFP (2016) estimates are lower for skipjack and higher for yellowfin and bigeye tuna. Recommendations are provided to continue analyses with logsheet, observer, cannery, and port sampling data to provide robust estimates of purse catches of key tuna species in the western Pacific. [doi:10.7289/V5/WP-PIFSC-17-005 (http://doi.org/10.7289/V5/WP-PIFSC-17-005)] Keith Bigelow, Mia Iwane, Haiying Wang and Valerie Post. "Issued 04 August 2017." "WCPFSC-SC13-2017 / SA WP-04." System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. 2017 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) PIFSC (Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center) Library http://doi.org/10.7289/V5/WP-PIFSC-17-005 Public Domain 1862