Report on review of stock assessment related to abalone ranching in Zone EC1 with consequent recommendations

An age-structured-production model approach, coupled to a recent survey estimate of biomass, is used to provide a TAC recommendation of 63 t for this resource, as follows from an 𝐹0.1 fishing mortality estimate. The calculations are subject to some uncertainties of note; these include the values of growth curve parameters, survey estimate imprecision and the assumption that the survey result reflects a resource subject to a fishing mortality in the region of 𝐹_0.1, with an unexploited population structure for sizes below the minimum legal size. For the ongoing management of the EC1 concession, annual surveys and updates of the calculations used in this document to provide the TAC recommendation are suggested.