Description of longitudinal distribution of Pacific saury juvenile in response to NPFC CMM 2019-08

We described geographical distribution of age-0 Pacific saury in the early fishing season in this paper. Cumulative percentages of age-0 abundance from west to east were calculated for all years from 2003 to 2019. Two major patterns in annual longitudinal distributions were observed. Age-0 fish showed the multi-peak longitudinal distribution pattern in some years. On the contrary, most of age-0 fish was found only in the waters east of 180° in rest of those years. The present western boundary at 170°E is highly likely to fail to protect large part of age-0 under the situations of some years. In light of the precautionary approach, we propose to expand the area by setting the western boundary at 160°E to prevent not only east part but also west part of distributions of age-0 from exposure to fishing pressure.