Busan, Republic of Korea Catch per Unit Effort of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean Wcpfc‐sc8‐2012/sa‐ip‐10 Catch per Unit Effort of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean

This paper follows from the indicator based analysis presented to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) Scientific Committee (SC7, Clarke et al. 2011). Following a brief summary of exploratory data analysis, this report presents a Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) standardization for oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) taken in longline and purse seine fisheries based on observer data held by the Secretariat of the Pacific ‐ Oceanic Fisheries Program (SPC‐OFP). The objectives were to produce multiple time series of standardized CPUE to be used as indices of abundance for use in the stock assessment. The sections of this report include a) a summary of the exploratory data analysis of oceanic whitetip shark (OCS) CPUE in the WCPO, b) presentation of the final standardized CPUE trends for oceanic whitetip sharks, c) model diagnostics, and d) a discussion of the quality of the available data and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the standardization procedures. This paper is prepared as an information paper to support the stock assessment presented to the scientific committee (Rice and Harley 2012) along with a study on alternate catch estimates (Rice 2012).