EU/UK request on Celtic Sea Whiting TAC

ICES presents mixed fishery short-term forecasts for the Celtic Sea and North Sea ecoregions. Two scenarios were considered, one being status quo effort (sq_E) that assumes a similar fleet effort in 2023 to that of the recent historical period (2019−2021 for the Celtic Sea and 2021 for the North Sea). The other scenario assumes that fleet effort in 2023 is equal to the effort required for full uptake of the whiting single stock advice for 2023 for each ecoregion (Whiting TAC). Differences in catches between the two scenarios can be attributed to whiting-specific choking to fleet effort in the two models. ICES also presents an analysis of the technical interactions among stocks. The analysis is similar to the one made for the Greater North Sea ecoregion Fisheries Overview (ICES, 2022d), but it is restricted to ICES division 7.d.

ICES notes that the mixed fishery short-term forecasts assume that the behaviour of fleets in 2023 is similar to the recent period. For the technical interactions, data are aggregated across these strata at the level available to ICES; this might overestimate the degree of technical interaction.