Gulf of Alaska | Fishes and Fish Habitats DOCTORATE POSTER PRESENTATION Advancing the data-limited stock assessment of Pacific sleeper shark ( Somniosus pacificus ) through analysis of satellite tagging data Presenter: Garrett Dunne , gdunne@alaska.edu, University of Alaska Fairbanks Andrew Seitz , acseitz@alaska.edu, University of Alaska Fairbanks Sustainable fisheries management is a priority in Alaska although data limitations can constrain the stock assessments that inform management decisions. One example is the Pacific sleeper shark ( Somniosus pacifcus ) that is not targeted commercially in Alaska but is taken incidentally in both longline and trawl fisheries. Due to bycatch, their ecological importance as predators, the acute vulnerability of elasmobranchs, and the likely extreme longevity that this species exhibits, a better understanding of movement is essential to evaluate stock status and trends. This project highlights our preliminary results in the analysis of tagging information retrieved from nine satellite tags placed on Pacific sleeper shark in Resurrection Bay, AK in the summer of 2021. We reconstructed the movement paths of these individual sharks using a hidden Markov model. This analysis highlights the areas most utilized by Pacific sleeper sharks conditional on their size and sex, as well as areas in which they may overlap with commercial fisheries. Overall, a better understanding of this species movement may improve our estimate of population size and trends for this stock in Alaska. Cindy Tribuzio , cindy.tribuzio@noaa.gov, Alaska Fisheries Science Center Jason Cope , jason.cope@noaa.gov, Northwest Fisheries Science Center Curry Cunningham , cjcunningham@alaska.edu
Alaska Marine Science Symposium 2023 182
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker