Report of the Review Group on Fisheries Surveys of North Sea Stocks (RGFS)

The North Sea Stock Survey (“the Survey”) has been organized by the North Sea Commission Fisheries Partnership (NSCFP) with the Scottish North Atlantic Fisheries Centre (NAFC), Marine Centre in Shetland, Scotland, overseeing data collection and undertaking data analysis and producing the Survey reports. The Survey has been performed since 2003, with a trial survey in 2002. The survey is conducted nationally by the EU member countries around the North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat (except Germany). Questionnaires are distributed to fishers, data from returned forms are digitized nationally prior to analysis at NAFC. The results are communicated to the respective ICES Working Group on the Assessment of Demersal Stocks in the North Sea and Skagerrak and to ACFM. Both the Working Group and ACFM have used the data to some extent. In the survey reports from 2005 and 2006 the perception of abundance of each stock was transformed in a semi-numerical format to illustrate the changes in perception of the abundance throughout time, these have been incorporated into the Working Group reports for some of the stocks.