NAMMCO SC Working Group on Marine Mammals and Fisheries Interactions in Copenhagen 13-14 March 2010
Core scientists belonging to the NAMMCO SC Working Group on Marine Mammals and Fisheries Interactions will meet to compile proposals and budgets for a coordinated project. The first phase of the work would involve fitting different models to the available data and comparing their projection results. Ideally, in a second stage, the models could each be subjected to common simulation testing for an indication of which might be providing the more reliable results. NOTE THAT THE DATES OF THIS MEETING HAVE CHANGED.As a backgound for this exercise it might be worth mentioning the following historical requests.
In 2003 the Management Committee agreed that the Scientific Committee should monitor progress made in multispecies modelling and in the collection of input data and decide when enough progress has been made to warrant further efforts in this area. Future meetings should focus on assessing modelling results from the Scenario Barents Sea model and possibly the GADGET-based template models for other areas, if they are developed. The Scientific Committee should also consider the feasibility of connecting the multi-species models with simple economic models at that time.
This request had not been completely addressed when in 2007 the Commission requested the Scientific Committee to review the results of the Icelandic programme on the feeding ecology of minke whales and multi-species modelling as soon as these become available.
As an addition, in 2008, the Commission instructed the Scientific Committee that in addressing the standing requests on ecosystem modelling and marine mammal fisheries interaction, the SC extend the focus to include all areas under NAMMCO jurisdiction. In the light of the distributional shifts seen under T-NASS 2007, the SC should investigate dynamic changes in spatial distribution due to ecosystem changes and functional responses.
