| Summary: | The Workshop on the Necessity of a Crangon and Cephalopod management (WKCCM) was successfully held at the ICES Headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark in October 2013. The majority of workshop participants were experts from WGCRAN and WGCEPH. Also three stakeholder representatives from Germany and the Neth-erlands attended the meeting; all three had a special interest in C. Crangon. The workshop aimed to provide advice on the need for management of the currently unregulated Crangon crangon (brown shrimp) in the North Sea and cephalopod stocks in the Northeast Atlantic. Potential steps towards a brown shrimp and/or cephalopod management, including due considerations of research needs and required stake-holder feedback have been developed. Given the differences in ecology, distribution area, life history of C. crangon and Cephalopods and the fisheries targeting the spe-cies; they are treated as different case studies. With regard to cephalopods this report covers the main cephalopod species of commercial interest in European waters, namely Sepia officinalis, Octopus vulgaris, Loligo vulgaris and Loligo forbesii in their most abundant and exploited ICES areas. C. Crangon The evidence found for the need of management of C. crangon is a combination of several factors. During the workshop recent studies and stock indicators were sum-marized and discussed leading to the conclusion that fishing has a large impact on the C. Crangon stock. The high fishing pressure likely led to growth overfishing of the population during recent years, and a reduction of effort is believed to be possible without major losses in catches. Additionally a healthier stock with larger shrimps and higher reproduction could be obtained if gears are adjusted and fishing pressure is released in general and especially on juvenile shrimps. The reduction of “unneces-sary” effort would lead to reduced impacts on the ecosystem through reduced dis-cards, bottom impacts, combustion and other adverse ecosystem effects. The control of effort and efficiency, a ...
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