Estimated poaching trends up to 2023 for West Coast rock lobster

Updated results are given for an approach which simultaneously models the “old” and the “new” databases, as recommended by the Panel for the 2018 International Fisheries Stock Assessment Workshop, with poaching data for lobster for 2023 now included. These results are compared to those obtained previously, with poaching data up to 2022. The 2023 poaching index estimated for the southern Super-area 8+ shows a negligible decrease compared to 2022. In the case of the northern Super-areas (3-7), a statistically significant increase is evident. A three-point smoothing approach adopted previously is used for converting the poaching series obtained into the outputs to be used for the series to be input to the assessments.