Seamount Planning Workshop
20-21 March 2006
Oceanic Fisheries Programme
Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Nouméa, New Caledonia
AGENDA
I suggest we divide the day in roughly 4 sessions of 1h30:
- 8:30-10:00: presentations-discussions
- 10:00-10:30: tea/coffee break
- 10:30-12:00: presentations-discussions
- 12:00-13:30: lunch break
- 13:30-15:00: presentations-discussions
- 15:00-15:30: tea/coffee break
- 15:30-17:00: presentations-discussions
Several speakers are invited to do presentations that will constitute the starting point of
the discussions to elaborate the research plan.
My suggestion is to start with a short presentation of the context and expectations for
this workshop. Then we will have several speakers who will present work already
conducted on seamounts in the region and we should finish by the presentation of the
new projects that are already planned but still in preparation/discussion, so now is a
good time to modify them if necessary.
There is no formal timing for the presentations as I expect many discussions during and
between the talks.
PRESENTATIONS provisional titles
Valerie Allain
The OFMP and the objectives of the workshop
Bertrand Richer de Forges
Seamounts explored by IRD in the Pacific Ocean
Jock Young
The Southern Surveyor 2004 voyage, pelagic habitat and community comparisons in the
fishing grounds of the tuna and billfish fishery off eastern Australia
David Itano
Seamount pelagic fisheries and research around Hawaii
Bruno Leroy
SPC-PNG Regional Tuna Tagging Project
Alex Rogers
IUCN / Deep-Ocean Quest joint study of seamounts in the Central Pacific Ocean.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
The meeting will be held in the small conference room of the conference center at SPC.
A video-projector and a computer will be available.
Wireless connection to the internet should be available and we should be able to find
spare computers in different offices if you need to do some work on computers or for
checking emails.
PROVISIONAL LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Participants
Organism
Country
E-mail
Jock Young
CSIRO Hobart
Australia
Jock.Young@csiro.au
Malcolm Clarck
NIWA- Wellington
New Zealand
m.clark@niwa.co.nz
Alex Rogers
IOZ / IUCN
United kingdom
Alex.Rogers@ioz.ac.uk
David Itano
University of Hawaii
Hawaii
dgi@hawaii.edu
Barbara Hanchard
Forum Fisheries Agency Solomon Islands
Barbara.hanchard@ffa.int
Sione Vailala Matoto
Ministry of Fisheries
Tonga
Svmatoto@tongafish.gov.to
Bertrand.Richer-de-
Bertrand Richer de Forges
IRD Noumea
New Caledonia
Forges@noumea.ird.nc
Valerie Allain
SPC Noumea
New Caledonia
valerieA@spc.int
Bruno Leroy
SPC Noumea
New Caledonia
brunol@spc.int
David Kirby
SPC Noumea
New Caledonia
davidK@spc.int
John Hampton
SPC Noumea
New Caledonia
JohnH@spc.int
Julie-Anne Kerandel
SPC Noumea
New Caledonia
julieannek@spc.int
SOME THOUGHTS AND SOME QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
To better understand the ecology of seamounts and to assess the impact of seamounts
on the pelagic fisheries and the impact of the fisheries of the seamounts, we might
consider to:
1- characterize the seamounts (biological and non-biological parameters) there are
very few data for this part of the study and that's where most of the sampling and work
needs to be done
2- characterize the pelagic ecosystem and fisheries (CPUE, species composition of the
catch, size of the catch, movement of the fish, trophic structure) fisheries data are
collected by SPC (CPUE, catch composition, length frequency) but more sampling is
needed to collect data on trophic structure and movements of the fish
3- determine the impact of seamounts on the pelagic ecosystem and fisheries
(comparison of fisheries and ecosystem characteristics in seamount and open ocean)
4- determine the impact of pelagic fisheries on the seamounts (comparison of seamount
characteristics in areas with high and low fishing pressure examination of the evolution
of the fisheries data with time)
2- Pelagic fisheries
4
IMPACT 3
1- Seamount
Who is involved and how?
SPC, IUCN, IRD, NIWA, CSIRO, University of Hawaii...?
Establish a list of "experts"
Which seamounts should we sample?
It is estimated that more than 30,000 seamounts exist in the Pacific Ocean alone. The
number of seamounts inferred from remote sensing and bathymetric data in the world
oceans is more than 14,000 (14,675), which almost half reside on the Pacific Plate. A
small number have been identified properly (less than 1000), and less (only 100 to 150)
have been studied.
Should we focus on already known seamounts, should we explore new seamounts
(need to be localized)?
We might identify areas with seamounts and low and high fishing effort to determine the
fishing impact.
Are there specific areas we should focus on? (From the fisheries point of view the
equatorial area is very important in terms of catch and effort.)
Is the time of the year important?
Should we try and samples at different times of the year, every year? (El Nino / La Nina
event)
It is a 5-year project but we cannot expect to do some sampling in the final 1 or 2 years.
Extensive sampling is time and money consuming, realizing similar sampling at different
times is probably not very realistic.
What do we sample?
We want to characterize the seamounts and the pelagic ecosystem and fisheries in
different conditions to determine the impacts(seamount open ocean high fishing
effort low fishing effort).
-Oceanographic and environmental parameters: bathymetry (detailed map), SST,
temperature vertical profiles, currents at the surface and in the water column, nutrients
vertical profiles, POM, geology...
-Biological components: pelagic (ppk, zpk, forage species - DSL, large predators) and
benthic
What do we measure on the sampled components?
Biodiversity: list of species (benthic and pelagic), identification needs
Estimates of biomass (benthic, DSL by acoustic, CPUE)
Size of the individuals
Trophic studies (stomachs of large pelagic, isotope)
Horizontal and vertical movements of the fish: tagging, listening stations to measure the
residency, acoustic...
Is there a benthic-pelagic relationship on seamounts?
Large pelagics (tunas...) rely mainly on the pelagic, planktonic and DSL organisms to
feed. What about the benthic species, is the base of their food web the particulate
matter? The tuna and other large pelagic don't feed directly on the benthic species, but
is there another component that could be the link between pelagic and benthic? If this
link exist, we should try and measure it.
Which boats?
-Deep Ocean Quest and IUCN are planning a 4-month cruise (more opportunities with
this boat in other areas?)
-chartered fishing vessels for tagging and stomach samples
-any other research boats from other institutions (NIWA, IRD, CSIRO, others)?
What are the capabilities of these boats?
Which equipment?
Water samples for ppk, CTD
Zpk nets
Mid water trawls IKTM and acoustic for forage/DSL biomass estimates and movements
Longline for large pelagics
Submarine for benthic biodiversity observation, benthic sampling gears
Multibeam scanner for bathymetry and other oceanographic equipment
Listening stations for tagging?
How many samples do we collect?
Who will do the analysis of the samples and data?
Benthic samples: identification experts
Ppk/zpk ID and measurement of biomass
Acoustic interpretation
ID of forage/DSL species
Diet studies, isotope studies
Tagging data