Committee of Age-Reading Experts
2001 Committee Report
Prepared for the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the Technical Subcommittee of the Canada-USA Groundfish Committee
May 2001
Prepared by
Brenda A. Erwin
2000-2002 CARE, chairperson
Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission
California Department of Fish and Game
P O Box 249
Belmont, CA 94002 USA
CARE 2001 Report to the Technical Subcommittee of the Canada-USA Groundfish Committee
A. CARE Overview, 2000-2001
History - The Committee of Age-Reading Experts, CARE, is a subcommittee of the Canada-USA Groundfish Committee’s, Technical Subcommittee, charged with the task to develop and apply standardized age determination criteria and techniques, and operating within the Terms of Reference approved by the TSC in 1986.
1. The last biennial CARE Workshop was held May 16-18, 2000, with attendance by agency members from California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
2. The CARE web page continues to be updated, though with some lag time because of opportunistic use of resources. It is available at http://www.psmfc.org/care/. New to the website will be posting of recent and historical age-structure exchange results.
B. CARE Working Group Reports
1.1 CARE Glossary- No action. This working group served an individual purpose at inception, however will likely be formally rolled into the Manual committee during this year’s workshop.
1.2 CARE Manual- No action.
The CARE web page is located on the PSMFC server at www.psmfc.org/care and has four basic sections at this time. They are the history of CARE, Ageing Manual, Summary of Age Reading Methodology and CARE meeting minutes..
There are several sections that should be added to the web page soon. There has been one submission for a logo for the web page by Joan Forsberg. Marion Mann created a fisher interaction page that explains what an otolith is, how the otolith is aged, and how to remove the otolith. New sections that will be added soon also include an otolith exchange document, the CARE Participants list, and ageing links.
The Ageing Manual is a living document and as such is continually changing. The images in the Ageing Manual have been rescanned to improve quality of the images on the web page; however, it was decided to wait on uploading the improved images until the manual has been reformatted. Once the manual has been reformatted, the version on the web page will be updated as well and identical to the hard copy version of the manual.
The TSC is encouraged to contribute ideas for this web page which would aid their processes.
This working group hopes to preserve the original intention of CARE by: a) better documenting past goals and accomplishments; b) clarifying elements of organization in accord with past and present understanding of the original Terms of Reference; and c) develop organizational structure and responsibilities of CARE officers, members, etc. The future of CARE will be best served if those members of longest tenure develop this charter. The goal is to have 1 member from each agency participate in this process…more members are encouraged.
C. Agency Structure Exchanges – Delsa Anderl
Tracking of agency structure-exchanges has been delegated to the CARE vice-chair.
D. CARE Workshop Business
1. Status of 1998 Recommendations from CARE to TSC
These recommendations to the TSC were reviewed and commented on by the TSC during their 1998 annual meeting. The CARE membership were advised of the TSC’s responses in an attachment to the "CARE - 1999 Committee Report to the TSC", following the 1999 meeting.
2. Status of 1998 Recommendations from TSC to CARE
The CARE membership were advised of the 1998 and 1999 recommendations from the TSC to CARE, in a summary report following the 1999 meeting. Collective consideration or statement of accomplishment will be developed at the 2000 CARE workshop.
3. Status of 1999 Recommendations from TSC to CARE
The CARE membership were advised of the 1999 recommendations from the TSC to CARE, at the 2000 CARE workshop. CARE initiated exchanges for hake, sablefish, and lingcod finrays, with all but the former completed in time for resolution at the 2000 CARE Workshop. CARE reviewed the list of species from the 1999 and 2000 TSC meetings and have no other species to add at this time.
4. Status of 2000 Recommendations from CARE to TSC
CARE would like to investigate setting up of a discussion group, "egroups", to facilitate and broadly disseminate common age-reading questions and solutions. Will the TSC support this effort in assuring technical assistance form the PSMFC webmaster, and/or, would the TSC like to be subscribers to the discussion list? The TSC has not had a chance to review and comment on this item.
5. Status of 2000 Recommendations from TSC to CARE
The CARE membership were advised of the 2000 recommendations from the TSC to CARE, at the 2000 CARE workshop. CARE recognizes the TSC benefits from these exchanges and will work to complete and submit the results of the exchanges as production schedules and/or supervisory influences allow.