Report of the Working Group on Aquaculture (WGAQUA)

The ICES Working Group on Aquaculture (WGAQUA), chaired by Peter Cranford (Canada), Pauline Kamermans (Netherlands), and Karin Boxespen (Norway) held its third meeting at the Narragansett Bay Campus of the University of Rhode Island (USA) on 16–20 March 2015 and was attended by 19 members and three guests. Paul-ine Kamermans had to cancel attendance at short notice for family reasons.The ICES response to the special advisory request from OSPAR (OSPAR 4/2014 Inter-actions between wild and captive fish stocks) was the first formal advisory process for WGAQUA. WGAQUA noted large inconsistencies in the science advice developed by WGAQUA and the advice provided by ACOM to OSPAR. WGAQUA subsequently recommended and suggest a more integrated and transparent Advisory process that better promotes the establishment of an ICES science consensus on aquaculture issues and increases transparency, efficiency and confidence in the advice provided to cli-ents.