Development and Evaluation of Stock Status of British Columbia Spot Prawn

A year-round recreational fishery exists for BC Spot Prawn, with some area-based winter closures in the south coast of BC. Commercial and recreational fisheries for BC Prawn are managed with an escapement-based harvest control rule (HCR) based on an index of reproduction aimed at ensuring a minimum number of spawning females (referred to as spawner index (SI)) available at the time of egg hatch in March each year for conservation. Prior to 2020, area-based openings for the winter recreational fishery were based on collection of in-season commercial-industry-funded fall survey data to estimate SI levels during the spawning period through the fall and winter months. Industry funding is no longer available to continue these surveys in several of the PFMAs. The current management procedure involves opening the fishery in the 10 PFMAs only if the survey data suggest SI levels are above the management targets. There are currently no other options to provide stock status advice for the recreational fishery in the absence of in-season SI survey data in the 10 PFMAs. This project aims to evaluate the utility of including other data sources to fill this data gap and address uncertainty around stock status in each of the 10 PFMAs to ensure conservation of Prawn stocks during the winter months. Specifically, the project will investigate whether additional data sources can be used to assess stock status (e.g., commercial fishery sampling, internet Recreational Effort and Catch (iREC) data, annual fisheries-independent surveys) and/or whether alternative methods or extension of current methods can be applied to develop new indices that will allow provision of science advice on stock status and testing of alternative HCRs relative to conservation objectives. We intend to evaluate different data sources to inform stock status and address time-sensitive management of spot prawns by: (1) developing a stage-structured population model to simulate population dynamics; (2) evaluating the information provided by other available data sources (e.g. recreational catch and effort data from iREC, annual surveys, commercial data); and (3) developing and testing additional harvest control rules (HCRs) under a range of uncertainties against the objectives for the species.