The Working Group recommended that :
In division 34.1.1 and the northern part of division 34.1.3 the sparid stocks should be managed together with the hake and the shrimp stocks.
In division 34.3.3 and the southern part of division 34.1.3, the sparid stocks should be management together with the cephalo pod stocks.
The Working Group strongly recommended that :
In view of the importance of having inspectors on board foreign trawlers, every effort should be made by the Mauritanian Authoritites to improve the present system of inspection (by ensuring the rotation of inspectors, for example).
When collecting data, countries should not only concentrate on species of national importance, but should also recognize international requirements.
Fishing logbooks should be put on all kinds of vessel to improve the relivaility of statistical data.
For those species for which appropriate data are available, CRODT should carry out yield per recruit assessments.
The Working Group also recommended that :
all possible efforts should be made to estimate the rates of discarding in all fisheries where sparids are important.
All possible efforts should be made to improve the species breakdown in those fisheries where this is not already done.
Gambia, Guinea and Guinea Bissau should try to provide detailed statistics, broken down by species, and should initiate port sampling for length frequencies for the most important sparid species. They should also request their foreign partners to initiate sampling on board their commercial vessels for length frequencies.
Morocco, for both divisions 34.1.1 and 34.1.3, should initiate port sampling for length frequencies, should improve the species breakdown in the statistics and should start fecundity studies.
Portugal should try to breakdown their statistics by division and should collect length frequency distributions and other biological data for the principal sparid species landed.
Spain (Canaries) should collect statistical and biological data, by species, for at least the most important species landed.
Mauritania, should, for each statistical division, increase port sampling for length frequencies ; should improve the species breakdown in the statistics ; and should start fecundity studies.
Senegal should submit improved historical data, and make every effort to obtain statistical information for some foreign fleets.
A future Working Group on sparid stocks should adopt a multispecies approach to the assessments.
The main recommendations for improvement of biological and statistical data collection are summarized in Table 74.
