"Scientists from the Midwater Assessment and Conservation Engineering (MACE) Program of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) regularly conduct acoustic-trawl (AT) surveys in late February and early March to estimate the abundance of pre-spawning walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus; hereafter referred to as 'pollock') in the southeastern Aleutian Basin near Bogoslof Island (Honkalehto et al. 2008a). These surveys were conducted annually between 1988 and 2007 (with the exception of 1990 and 2004), and biennially starting in 2009 (with the exception of 2011). The biomass estimate for pollock within the Central Bering Sea Convention Specific Area obtained during these AT surveys provides an index of abundance for the Aleutian Basin pollock stock. This report summarizes observed pollock distribution and biological information from the winter 2014 AT survey, and provides an abundance estimate (Ianelli et al. 2014a), and it summarizes water temperature observations, and acoustic system calibration results"--Introduction.

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)