International Review Panel Report for the 2018 International Fisheries Stock Assessment workshop

The Panel recognised the very high quality of the research presented at the 2018 International Fisheries Stock Assessment Review Workshop. This included research on Southern African hake, sardine and rock lobster, as well as new methods for conducting stock assessments where the main data sources are indices of abundance and catch. The Panel thanked the workshop participants for their hard work preparing and presenting the workshop papers, for the extra analyses undertaken during the workshop, and for the informative input provided during discussions. This report starts with observations from the Panel on some general issues for the species and analysis programmes reviewed, and then focuses on answering the questions posed by DAFF Research, providing a more detailed technical review where necessary, and finally recommending further work concerning each fishery. The recommendations are annotated by their priorities (H, M, L). Much of this report reflects responses to the questions. For ease of reading, answers to the questions that also have research components are indicated by an asterisk.