Conservative Scoring Approach in Productivity Susceptibility Analysis Leads to an Overestimation of Vulnerability: A Study from the Hilsa Gillnet Bycatch Stocks of Bangladesh

Despite different approaches used to assign the risk scores for missing information in productivity susceptibility analysis (PSA)—a widely semi-quantitative assessment tool target and non-target fisheries stocks—for selected attributes of a given species, no formal comparison has been made between scoring terms how well they can predict species vulnerability. The present study evaluated PSA findings 21 bycatch stocks Hilsa (Tenualosa ilisha) gillnet fishery Bangladesh using two (the conservative approach, CSA; alternative ASA) determine most reliable approach minimize false estimates Our revealed that V increased by 0.0?0.20 with mean value 0.09 bycatches when CSA was applied. inconsistency vulnerability (V)-score-suggested fishing status (V ? 1.8 = underfishing, > overfishing) defined exploitation rate (E 0.5 overfishing, E < underfishing) were 38.1% 19.0% under ASA, respectively. Likewise, consistency V-score-suggested fishers’ perceived catch trends found be higher ASA than CSA. suggests could overestimate Therefore, is more PSA, which may increase confidence stakeholders PSA.