Observers on board fishing vessels can potentially collect a wide range of different types of information. In the current context however, as noted in Term of Reference A, the main concern is with the collection of discard data for use in stock assessment. This tends to imply the collection of relatively detailed information for a relatively restricted number of species, i.e. those fish or shellfish species for which stock assessments may be required. It is noted that there is also increasing

more »

... terest in the use of discard data in the evaluation of the wider, ecosystem effects of fishing. This requires information about all components of the catch, and may thus require a different sampling approach. The workshop also gave some consideration to this aspect of discard data collection, although it was treated as a lower priority than the stock assessment context.