1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 3 Table of Contents...............................................1 4 5 Call to Order...................................................2 6 7 Adoption of Agenda..............................................3 8 9 SSC Representation on SEDAR 57..................................6 10 11 Discussion of National SSC Meeting.............................13 12 13 Overview.......................................................16 14 15 Review Last Meeting Outcomes...................................32 16 17 Discussion of Data Issues and Year Sequences...................36 18 St. Thomas/St. John.......................................36 19 St. Croix.................................................88 20 St. Thomas/St. John (continued)..........................155 21 22 Discussion of ABC Control Rule................................168 23 24 Continued Discussion of Year Sequences for Conch and Spiny 25 Lobster in St. Thomas/St. John and St. Croix..................223 26 27 Discussion of Tier Designation................................297 28 Puerto Rico..............................................297 29 30 SEDAR 46 Update and Discussion................................468 31 32 Discussion of Tier Designation (Continued) ...................477 33 St. Thomas/St. John......................................476 34 St. Croix................................................525 35 36 Review of Tier Sequences......................................592 37 38 Discussion of PSA Analysis Request............................598 39 40 SEDAR 46 Discussion (Continued)...............................614 41 42 Other Business................................................631 43 44 Adjournment...................................................636 45 46 - - - 1 1 CARIBBEAN FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL 2 SCIENTIFIC AND STATISTICAL COMMITTEE 3 CFMC Headquarters 4 San Juan, Puerto Rico 5 6 JULY 10-14, 2017 7 8 The Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Caribbean 9 Fishery Management Council convened at the CFMC Office, San 10 Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday morning, July 10, 2017, and was called 11 to order by Chairman Richard Appeldoorn. 12 13 CALL TO ORDER 14 15 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Welcome, everybody. This is the July 16 meeting of the Scientific and Statistical Committee, and we will 17 start off, as always, with a voice roll call. 18 19 WALTER KEITHLY: Walter Keithly. 20 21 JORGE GARCIA-SAIS: Reni Garcia, SSC. 22 23 TODD GEDAMKE: Todd Gedamke. 24 25 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Graciela Garcia-Moliner, council 26 staff. 27 28 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Rich Appeldoorn, SSC Chair. 29 30 VANCE VICENTE: Vance Vicente, SSC. 31 32 JOCELYN D’AMBROSIO: Jocelyn D’Ambrosio, NOAA Office of General 33 Counsel. 34 35 CARLOS FARCHETTE: Carlos Farchette, Council Chair. 36 37 ORIAN TZADIK: Orian Tzadik, Pew Charitable Trusts. 38 39 NELSON CRESPO: Nelson Crespo, DAP Chair, Puerto Rico. 40 41 IRIS OLIVERAS: Iris Oliveras, council staff. 42 43 EDWARD SCHUSTER: Edward Schuster, DAP Chair, St. Croix. 44 45 JULIAN MAGRAS: Julian Magras, DAP Chair, St. Thomas/St. John. 46 47 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: On Go to Meeting, you have Tyler 48 Smith, SSC member, and Sarah Stevenson and Bill from the 2 1 Regional Office. 2 3 ADOPTION OF AGENDA 4 5 RICHARD APPELDOORN: All right. The first item is the agenda, 6 and you were all sent a copy of that. There have been some 7 discussions, particularly between Bill Arnold and myself, to 8 basically redo that completely. 9 10 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: I included what you had in your last 11 email for the adoption of the agenda. 12 13 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Because a number of people aren’t here, 14 particularly Bill, although he’s listening in, and Shannon, who 15 will be traveling today and will be arriving tomorrow, and Bill 16 will be arriving late morning tomorrow, I believe, but some of 17 the discussions that we are looking at would be best postponed 18 until they are here. That was one reason. 19 20 Then a second reason for altering the agenda was basically to do 21 whatever we’re doing for all three platforms, and then we can 22 move on to the next step, and we do that for all three 23 platforms, and, that way, the process of what we are doing stays 24 fresh in our minds. If any problems arise that come from one 25 island, we can go back to the other island and say, okay, is 26 this also an issue there or not and adjust things accordingly 27 before we go on. 28 29 The suggestion was that the first thing that we do would be 30 continue discussions of the year sequences. We had pretty much 31 finished those, or did finish those, for Puerto Rico, and so we 32 would start -- We will review what we did for Puerto Rico, just 33 to get us on track, but the really first pass would be to look 34 at the year sequences for the U.S. Virgin Islands, and that will 35 get interesting, because we will have the issue about the fact 36 that we had a change in data reporting for some species, I think 37 as much as, I think, five years ago, but some of those species- 38 specific counts are just coming online this year, I believe. We 39 have variations in the data available to us. Unfortunately, we 40 don’t have Kevin here, and he would be really important for 41 that. 42 43 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: There are a couple of other things 44 that you can -- 45 46 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Yes, and also we can start off looking at 47 the question of -- I don’t know how you want to talk about this, 48 but the SEDAR representation, the SSC representation at SEDAR. 3 1 2 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Do you want to do that in the first 3 day? 4 5 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Yes. This is for SEDAR 57, spiny lobster. 6 Also, we could deal with, early on, SSC representation at the 7 national meeting, and these are back-to-back. 8 9 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: That is January of 2018, no? 10 11 RICHARD APPELDOORN: I believe that’s correct. 12 13 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: In San Diego. 14 15 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Yes, and spiny lobster is -- The data 16 workshop is the 23rd to the 25th, and so that’s the first step. 17 That would be here. 18 19 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Do you want to review the ABC control 20 rule? 21 22 RICHARD APPELDOORN: I was just going to say that between the 23 first day overview and the USVI. 24 25 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: It’s not really that the whole thing 26 has been rearranged, but it’s that you are collapsing all these 27 points that were in the agenda. 28 29 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Yes, and, for example, when we talk about 30 year sequences, we’re going to be facing not only the change in 31 data issues, but we’re going to be talking about -- 32 33 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: The steps that you follow in the ABC 34 control rule. 35 36 RICHARD APPELDOORN: The indicator species. When we talk about 37 -- When we first get into the USVI, we’re going to be talking 38 about their data, and that will lead us into a conversation 39 about indicator species, and we have already reviewed what 40 indicator species could be for the Virgin Islands, but the data 41 is going to tell us whether that is practical or not. 42 43 Then, going down, it was simply -- If you go to wherever Tuesday 44 is, Tuesday was going to be the tier assessments for the Virgin 45 Islands. Again, we have pretty much done that for Puerto Rico. 46 Then Wednesday we would start talking about scalars, and this is 47 going to bring in the productivity and susceptibility analysis, 48 and this is something that has been hatched since our last 4 1 meeting, and Shannon will be giving a presentation on that, as 2 an approach to looking at scalars. Then we will have discussion 3 about that and getting to the issue of scalars. Scalars and 4 buffers are for all platforms. 5 6 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Also all of these approaches. 7 8 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Yes. Then, on Friday, we’re finishing 9 whatever we haven’t done, and we’re making recommendations to 10 the council. Is there any other business that we need to deal 11 with at the moment? 12 13 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: You had a DAP meeting this past week, 14 and that was mostly dealing with the buffer that goes from the 15 ABC that the SSC recommends to the council to the ACL, but they 16 also have made recommendations, and we had brought them to you 17 at the last SSC meeting. 18 19 Each island group went through the list of species that are 20 proposed for management and gave you specific recommendations 21 for your sequences or gave you information on the reasons why 22 the stock is healthy or it’s not, et cetera. Those three 23 documents, you have had since the last meeting. They went over 24 some of those recommendations, and they actually worked on very 25 specific information for what Shannon will be presenting, and so 26 that information will be brought into the PSA analysis. The 27 three DAP Chairs are here, in case you need any additional 28 information. 29 30 RICHARD APPELDOORN: So do we need a motion to adopt the agenda? 31 32 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: Yes, and you have modified it, and so 33 to accept the modified agenda. 34 35 RICHARD APPELDOORN: To accept the modified agenda. I can’t 36 make the motion. 37 38 WALTER KEITHLY: I will make the motion to adopt the agenda. 39 40 JORGE GARCIA-SAIS: Second. 41 42 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Any opposition? The motion carries without 43 opposition. Then we will get the simplified version up on the 44 screen of the agenda? 45 46 GRACIELA GARCIA-MOLINER: You want me to get rid of everything 47 that was in the original agenda and just clean it up? 48 5 1 RICHARD APPELDOORN: Well, at least the things you’ve crossed 2 out.