2001 Anchovy Otolith Exchange Programme from Subarea VIII and Division IXa

Exchange and checking of the procedures for age determination of the anchovy otoliths have been made in the past for several reasons; For the Bay of Biscay a previous exercises took place in 1990 (Astudillo et al 1990) and in 1996 (Villamor & Uriarte, 1996); For the Bay of Cadiz area (Division IXa) a previous exchange programme took place in 1997 (Garcia 1998). However no proper workshop on the reading procedures of these otoliths has taken place before.

Within PELASSES project, in subtask 2.3 it was established that at least one workshop will be organized to standardize the age readings of sardine and anchovy. However it was considered that before the workshop an exchange programme of anchovy otoliths should be carried out in order to ascertain the current level of precision among institutes and the difficulties that the age reading of anchovy otoliths present. The results of the workshop should serve as starting input to the Workshop on anchovy age reading.

This paper presents the results of the exchange programme on anchovy otoliths coordinated by AZTI from July to September 2001 for PELASSES Project.