General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean - GFCM

Research Programme
on piked dogfish in the Black Sea 

The development and implementation of a GFCM research programme on piked dogfish in the Black Sea was established by recommendation GFCM/44/2021/10 on management measures for sustainable piked dogfish fisheries in the Black Sea (geographical subarea 29). The programme aims to provide the scientific basis for the identification of future potential management measures, including:  

  • temporal and spatial closures for piked dogfish fisheries during the reproductive season;  
  • measures to reduce and mitigate bycatch; and  
  • if needed, reassessing the minimum landing size towards defining a minimum reference conservation size for piked dogfish.

Objectives:

The research program places emphasis on implementing a step-by-step approach to collect the required scientific information in support of the adoption of adequate fisheries management measures towards reverting the critical state of the piked dogfish population in the Black Sea.

Area of implementation

Focus Countries:

Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Türkiye and (potentially) Ukraine  

Duration

January 2023 – December 2024

Activities

In order to address and fill the data gaps towards a more informed assessment of stock status as well as the identification of targeted and effective management measures, the research program is composed of six work packages (WPs). 

Work package 1 (WP1ENG): Stakeholder engagement

  • Creating networks  
  • Awareness-raising  
  • Exploring fisher knowledge 
  • Dissemination

Work package 2 (WP2BYC): Bycatch - characterizing the bycatch pattern across the Black Sea basin

  • Collect information on existing discards monitoring programs at country level and identify gaps.  
  • Enhance existing discards monitoring programmes to fill the gaps identified in Task 1. 

Work package 3 (WP3BIO): Biological data collection

  • Perform an all-of-Black Sea demersal survey adequately optimized for catching piked dogfish and analyse emerging data 
  • Perform an appraisal of previous ageing efforts and organize an age-reading workshop 

Work package 4 (WP4SPAT): Spatial dynamics of piked dogfish

  • Perform a tagging study of piked dogfish 
  • Data analysis to identify spatial aggregations and migration routes 

Work package 5 (WP5TGT): Target piked dogfish fisheries

  • Collect information (landings, effort, vessel characteristics etc…) on the fishery targeting piked dogfish 
  • Socio-economic study by means of standardised questionnaires 

Work package 6 (WP6PRM): Post-release mortality

  • Perform a pilot study to determine the best methodology to quantify post-release mortality of dogfish 
  • Perform post-release mortality studies employing the methodology identified in Task 1