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Stock Assessments

Photo: NOAA Fisheries

Uku Snapper

The ukupalu snapper, more commonly known as uku, is found throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago (the northwestern and main Hawaiian Islands) at depths of 60 to 650 feet. Uku have been fished for hundreds of years in the Hawaiian Archipelago region. It is a particularly important resource for recreational and subsistence fishers; these fisheries accounting for over half of the total annual uku catches, at approximately 55 mt per year.

The commercial fishery has experienced increases and declines in catches since the 1950s but since the 1990s have been steadily increasing to approximately 50 mt per year. The most common fishing method is deep-sea handline with baited hooks. Currently, the MHI stock is jointly managed by the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and NOAA.

Prior to 2017, the MHI uku stock was assessed as a part of a snapper complex. The most recent assessment in 2020 was a single-species assessment that used the statistical catch-at-age model Stock Synthesis (version 3.30). The model incorporated both fishery-dependent and fishery-independent data.

Fishery-dependent data included individual weights, catch, and catch-per-unit-effort data from the commercial fishery for the years 1948 to 2018 and recreational catch data from the Hawai’i Marine Recreational Fishing Survey for the years 2003 to 2018.

The fishery-independent index of relative abundance data was from the Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program for the years 2005 to 2016.

The assessment was the first successful implementation of an integrated Stock Synthesis model in Hawai’i and marks a milestone for the stock assessment program and the future of conservation of marine resources in Hawai’i.