Results leading to a Proposal for a Reference Set of Operating Models for Testing the 2014 OMP Revision for the South African hake resource

Proposals are made for a Reference Set of Operating Models for testing the 2014 Revision of the hake OMP. These start from a full cross of factors covering three major axes of uncertainty: 3 centre-years for the species preponderance change in the catch x 3 natural mortality vectors x 3 stock-recruitment relationships. To reduce this number of 27 OMs without sacrificing the design’s balance, only combinations where both the natural mortality vector and the year of the reversal in species dominance are changed from their central choices are then proposed to be included. Furthermore, two OMs are proposed for exclusion because of their questionably small BMSY/K = 0.11 values for M. capensis, thus leaving 13 OMs.