A sensitivity test to the assessment of the South African sardine resource based on an alternative estimate of November 2020 biomass

A sensitivity test to the quantitative assessment of the South African sardine resource has been carried out, in which the survey estimate of sardine abundance west of Cape Agulhas was replaced with a ‘combined’ estimate taking into account a regression between the ratio of sardine bycatch with round herring fishing and round herring catches with the ratio of November survey estimated sardine to round herring. The model is not very sensitive to this alternative data point.