Workshop for Salmon Life Cycle Modelling

A workshop of jurisdictional experts and modellers working on Atlantic salmon in the North Atlantic was held to develop competencies in using a newly developed Life Cycle Model (LCM) and to formalize the workflow of the new modelling framework for assessing and providing fisheries catch advice for Atlantic salmon stocks in the North Atlantic. The workshop evaluated the LCM which incorporates all Atlantic salmon stocks at the North Atlantic scale in a single model, reviewed comparisons of current ICES pre-fishery abundance (PFA) models and the LCM approach, and discussed the data inputs and process for running the LCM. The LCMframework is embedded within a suite of R programs and a shiny web application, which are available online, that simplify and strengthen the robustness of the stock assessment workflow from the input data to the production of catch advice. Timelines for providing data from juris-dictions for input to the LCM were discussed and it was indicated that data from jurisdictions are generally not ready until March of the assessment year, which underscores the need to have automated processes for the ICES PFA model and the new LCM processes. The decision was made at the workshop to provide the required assessment and provision of catch advice in March 2021 based on the previous PFA models used by ICES. The LCM would be run in parallel and the results of the PFA model and LCM outputs compared. A follow-up workshop is proposed for late 2021/early 2022 to prepare the elements of LCM and PFA model descriptions, data inputs, and workflow processes in preparation for a proposed ICES Benchmark process in 2022.