Revised 2024 assessment of Jasus tristani rock lobster at Gough island

This paper provides a revised updated assessment of the Jasus tristani rock lobster resource at Gough island. This revision constrains the sigma values of the commercial and biomass survey indices to be ≥0.15 to give stable results. It also now takes updated standardised CPUE and discard % data from the commercial fishery for the 2023 season, as well as the final catch figure for 2023, into account. This assessment was last fully updated in 2021. This revised updated 2024 assessment has produced somewhat more optimistic results (compared with the 2021 assessment) with respect to current spawning biomass. Current resource abundance is estimated to be 95% of pristine – a very healthy state. This updated assessment model will function as the underlying baseline operating model in the development of a new 2024 OMP.