Bilat - Age reading workshops on important fish species in the Barents Sea

Norway and Russia cooperate in management of the marine fish resources in the Barents Sea region, which heavily relies on accurate and precise age estimates of the fish. Fish age estimation is a difficult task involving long training and human interpretat ion of fish otolith morphology. As part of quality assurance and quality control of age reading Norwegian and Russian age-reading experts and scientist meet annually or bi-annually to make sure age estimates are accurate and comparable. The annual otolith reading workshop will this year be expanded with age-readers and scientists from Canada and Iceland, which has comparable challenges of age estimates for their own fish stocks in the Arctic region. With this application we ask for financial support for a rranging two workshops in Bergen on age estimates for important Barents Sea fish species, involving age-readers and scientists from Russia, Canada, Norway and Iceland.