A Test of Deriving Sex-Composition Data for the Directed Pacific Halibut Fishery via At-Sea Marking

Sensitivity analyses have identified uncertainty regarding sex ratios within commercial landings of Pacific Halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis as an influential source of variance within annual stock assessments for this species in U.S. and Canadian waters. Sex composition of dockside landings cannot be directly observed because all retained fish must be eviscerated at sea, and sex cannot be visually determined in the absence of the gonads. In the current study, a marking program was evaluated in which sex-specific marks were applied by fishers to their retained catch, the mark was recorded during dockside monitoring, and the accuracy of the recorded sexes was validated using genetic techniques. The chosen marks (two vertical cuts in the dorsal fin for females and a single cut in the operculum of males) were considered by fishers to be easy to apply during at-sea processing and produced sex-ratio estimates that were equivalent to genetic results for 65% of sampled landings. However, vessel- and region-specific accuracy was variable. Additional incentives to encourage vessels to participate in the program, continued outreach, or potentially a regulatory requirement to mark fish would be required to produce sufficient data to satisfy stock assessment needs, and ongoing validation would likely need to accompany such a program to ensure consistent and acceptable data quality.