Authorized by the Fisheries Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Chinese fishery science delegation, composed of teachers Chen Yong and Guan Wenjiang and graduate student Wang Yang of the College of Marine Science, attended the Conference on the Resource Assessment of Bigeye Tuna in the Atlantic Ocean held in Pasaia, Spain on July 16~20. A total of 37 science representatives and experts from Brazil, Cape Verde, China, Cote d’Ivoire, the EU, Gabon, Japan, America, Morocco and other countries, as well as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), attended this conference. The conference was directed by Doctor Hilario Murua, drafter of the report of Bigeye Tuna in the Atlantic Ocean.

Bigeye tuna is a main economic fingerling of our tuna fishery in the Atlantic Ocean. The conference analyzed the uncertainty with bigeye tuna resource assessment data, virtual population analysis (VPA), biomass-based resource assessment model (mpb), Bayes-based state space yield model (JABBA) and synthesized model (SS3), and mainly discussed issues like the model selection closely related to fishery management and measurement development, the uncertainty with model estimation result, the model prediction, etc. The conference was held to provide assessment reports and fishery management suggestions about the resource status of bigeye tuna for the species working group conference of ICCAT held in September and the conference of the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) in October, and would ultimately influence the tuna quota and other fishery interests of our country in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the pre-conference schedule, our delegation actively took part in the discussion of various issues and the development of related management suggestions, and was highly praised by the representatives present at the conference for our constructive advice concerning the quantitative analysis of model retrospective errors, the procedure of determining time-varying selection model, the principle of defining model structure assumption, the method of analyzing assessment result uncertainty, the principle of determining management model, model prediction method and related rules, the method of improving management strategy evaluation, the participation degree of various parties concerned and its review procedure, etc. Our delegation also required the model to consider many possible uncertainties, add model calculation scenarios, compare the influence of different scenarios on resource assessment results and management measures and introduce other critical issues, and thus safeguarded the fishery interest of our country from the perspective of scientific research. By virtue of their hard efforts, our representatives successfully completed their tasks.