Occurrences of sensitive fish species in scientific trawl surveys of the Northeast Atlantic 1983-2020

The OSPAR (`https://www.ospar.org/convention`_) fish biodiversity assessment concerns sensitive and often rare species in the northeast Atlantic Ocean and marginal seas. All fish species captured during fishing on scientific groundfish (otter and beam trawl) surveys are recorded but not necessarily weighed and measured for length. The biodiversity assessment for sensitive and often rare species thus makes use of the occurrences (presence and absences) of a species only. A list of sensitive fish species was developed to guide the work for the OSPAR fish biodiversity assessment. The list was created by first collating all sensitive fish species recorded on international and national hard law lists, Regional Seas Conventions lists, International Agreement Lists, relevant IUCN Red List species (classified as EX, CR, VU or EN) and all ICES and academic work to identify sensitive fish species. From this extensive list of species, species were removed if they did not occur in the OSPAR area of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Remaining species were divided by region; Bay of Biscay and Iberian Coast, Celtic Seas, Greater North Sea, Norwegian Sea and parts of Macaronesia where data was available. Those species whose normal distribution was at the very edge of an OSPAR region were not assessed within the region. .. _`https://www.ospar.org/convention`: https://www.ospar.org/convention