Other skates and rays in Subarea 8 and Division 9.a (Bay of Biscay and Atlantic Iberian waters)

This advice relates to skates not specified elsewhere in the ICES advice, including skates not reported to species level and some  other,  mainly  deep-water  speciesthroughout  the  region.  It  also  applies  to  R.  clavata,  R.  brachyura,and  R. microcellata outside defined stock boundaries. The advice only relates to species belonging to the Rajidae (skates), and does not refer to manta rays, sting rays, electric rays, or devil rays.

Other species of skates and ray also found in this ecoregion occur in small, variable proportions in the landings. These include:

Dipturus oxyrinchus
Leuroraja circularis
Leucoraja fullonica
Raja microocellata
Raja asterias
Raja miraletus

Based  on  the  ICES  approach  to  data-limited  stocks,  ICES  advises  that  landings  should  be  reduced  by  20%.  Based  on  estimated species-specific landings, this would imply landings of 614 t in each of 2015 and 2016. Discarding is known to take place but has not been quantified, and there is some discard survival.