ANNUAL STOCK ASSESSMENT AND FISHERY EVALUATION REPORT: PACIFIC REMOTE ISLAND AREA FISHERY ECOSYSTEM PLAN 2016 Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council 1164 Bishop St., Suite 1400 Honolulu, HI 96813 PHONE: (808) 522-8220 FAX: (808) 522-8226 www.wpcouncil.org The ANNUAL STOCK ASSESSMENT AND FISHERY EVALUATION REPORT for the PACIFIC REMOTE ISLAD AREA FISHERY ECOSYSTEM 2016 was drafted by the Fishery Ecosystem Plan Team. This is a collaborative effort primarily between the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, NMFS-Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center, Pacific Islands Regional Office, Division of Aquatic Resources (HI) Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (AS), Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources (Guam), and Division of Fish and Wildlife (CNMI). This report attempts to summarize annual fishery performance looking at trends in catch, effort and catch rates as well as provide a source document describing various projects and activities being undertaken on a local and federal level. The report also describes several ecosystem considerations including fish biomass estimates, biological indicators, protected species, habitat, climate change and human dimensions. Information like marine spatial planning and best scientific information available for each fishery are described. This report provides a summary of annual catches relative to the Annual Catch Limits established by the Council in collaboration with the local fishery management agencies. Edited By: Marlowe Sabater, Asuka Ishizaki, Rebecca Walker, and Sylvia Spalding, WPRFMC This document can be cited as follows: WPRFMC 2017. Annual Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report for the Pacific Remote Island Area Fishery Ecosystem Plan 2016. Sabater, M., Ishizaki, A., Walker, R., Spalding, S. (Eds.) Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 USA ii The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council acknowledges the valuable contributions of the following Plan Team members for drafting sections of this report: NMFS Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center: Justin Hospital, Ivor Williams, Joe O’Malley, Brett Taylor, Michael Parke, Phoebe Woodworth-Jefcoats, John Marra, Tom Oliver, Frank Parrish, T. Todd Jones, Kirsten Leong and Minling Pan. NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office: Melanie Brown and Sarah Ellgen Pacific Islands Regional Planning Body: Sarah Pautzke The Council also acknowledges the staff of the NMFS PIFSC Western Pacific Fisheries Information Network (WPacFIN) for providing the technical support to generate the data summaries. The Council would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to the report: Eileen Shea, Catherine Pham, Dawn Golden iii This page was intentionally left blank. iv Annual SAFE Report for the PRIA FEP Executive Summary Executive Summary As part of its 5 year fishery ecosystem plan (FEP) review, the Council identified the annual reports as a priority for improvement. The former annual reports have been revised to meet National Standard regulatory requirements for the Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) reports. The purpose of the report is twofold: monitor the performance of the fishery and ecosystem to assess the effectiveness of the FEP in meeting its management objectives; and maintain the structure of the FEP living document.. The reports are comprised of three chapters: fishery performance, ecosystem considerations, and data integration. The 2015 Pacific Remote Island Area (PRIA) annual SAFE report does not contain the fishery performance chapter. The Council will iteratively improve the annual SAFE report as resources allow. Ecosystem considerations were added to the annual SAFE report following the Council’s review of its fishery ecosystem plans and revised management objectives (pending Secretarial transmittal). Fishery independent ecosystem survey data, socioeconomics, protected species, climate and oceanographic, essential fish habitat, and marine planning information are included in the ecosystem considerations section. Fishery dependent sections will be included in later years as resources allow. Because human habitation is limited in the PRIA, socioeconomic information is also limited. The socioeconomics section of this report will be expanded in later years if activity increases. Fishery independent ecosystem survey data was acquired through visual surveys conducted in PRIA, American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Main Hawaiian Islands, and Northwest Hawaiian Islands. This report illustrates the mean fish biomass for the reef areas within these locations. Additionally, the mean reef fish biomass and mean size of fishes (>10 cm) for PRIA are presented by sampling year and reef area. Finally, the reef fish population estimates for each PRIA study site are provided for hardbottom habitat (0-30 m). The protected species section of this report summarizes information and monitors protected species interactions in fisheries managed under the PRIA FEP. There are currently no bottomfish, crustacean, coral reef or precious coral fisheries operating in the PRIA, and no historical observer data are available for fisheries under this FEP. The climate change section of this report includes indicators of current and changing climate and related oceanic conditions in the geographic areas for which the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has responsibility. In developing this section, the Council relied on a number of recent reports conducted in the context of the U.S. National Climate Assessment including, most notably, the 2012 Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment and the Ocean and Coasts chapter of the 2014 report on a Pilot Indicator System prepared by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee. The primary goal for selecting the indicators used in this report is to provide fisheries-related communities, resource managers and businesses with climate-related situational awareness. In this context, indicators were selected to be fisheries relevant and informative, build intuition about current conditions in light of changing climate, provide historical context and recognize patterns and trends. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) trend is increasing exponentially with a time series maximum at 406.43 ppm. The oceanic pH at Station Aloha, in Hawaii has shown a significant v Annual SAFE Report for the PRIA FEP Executive Summary linear decrease of -0.0386 pH units, or roughly a 9% increase in acidity ([H+]) since 1989. 2015 showed extreme high temperature anomalies, with values surpassing 20 degree heating weeks in the equatorial regions. The central Pacific saw seven named storms in 2016, three of which were hurricanes and two major. The 2016 annual report includes an update of the precious corals species descriptions, effects of non-fishing and cumulative impacts on EFH. The guidelines also require a report on the condition of the habitat. In the 2016 annual report, mapping progress and benthic cover are included as indicators, pending development of habitat condition indicators for the PRIA not otherwise represented in other sections of this report. The annual report also addresses any Council directives toward its plan team. There were no directives in 2016. The marine planning section of the annual report tracks activities with multi-year planning horizons and begins to track the cumulative impact of established facilities. Development of the report in later years will focus on identifying appropriate data streams. No ocean activities with multi-year planning horizons were identified for the Pacific Remote Islands Areas. The Data Integration Chapter of this report is still under development. The Council hosted a Data Integration Workshop on November 30 - December 1, 2017 with participants from the NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office and Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. The goal of the workshop was to identify policy-relevant fishery ecosystem relationships. The archipelagic data integration chapter will investigate 30 fishery dependent variable-ecological/environmental indicator combinations. A contractor is currently conducting the region-wide analysis and results will be included in the 2017 SAFE report if available. The Archipelagic Plan Team made the following recommendations with respect to the PRIA FEP. Regarding the data integration chapter of the SAFE report, the Archipelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Team recommends the Council include the following variables in the exploratory data analysis being conducted by the Council’s contractor: • Effect of subsidy program • Market forcing • Effects of fish import-export Regarding the species table, the Archipelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Team recommends the Council direct staff, in coordination with NMFS staff, to convene a working group to finalize the species table used to generate fishery statistics Regarding Essential Fish Habitat, the Plan Team recommends that the Council: • Consider amending the non-fishing impacts, cumulative impacts, and conservation and enhancement recommendations in the Western Pacific FEPs based on the options provided by the Plan Team, and vi Annual SAFE Report for the PRIA FEP Executive Summary • Consider amending the EFH designations and species descriptions for precious corals based on the options provided by the Plan Team. The Archipelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan Team recognizes the importance of the ecosystem component amendment to address the operational