A striking feature of the historic catches from the northern CECAF area is the way in which cephalopod and particularly octopus catches increased, starting in the sixties at the time when sparid catches had been reduced to a very low level by fishing (Caddy, 1981 and Gulland and Garcia, 1984).
The possibility of species replacement has been considered by these and other authors. The Working Group noted this possibility, but had no new information to add.
