Can Mediterranean cephalopod stocks be managed at MSY by 2020? The Balearic Islands as a case study

According to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), all European fish stocks should be brought to a state where they can produce at MSY by 2015 wherever possible or by 2020 at the latest. Despite the high socio-economical importance of cephalopods in the Mediterranean and the increased availability of stock assessments during the recent past, only few European cephalopod stocks have been assessed to date. Surplus production models were applied to analyse the exploitation state of octopus and cuttlefish stocks from the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean) to estimate how far away they were from the MSY target established by the CFP using a long-term data series (1977–2013). The stocks were overexploited (cuttlefish) or about to be overexploited (octopus) during the late 1970s; this state remains even now and will only recover from overexploitation by 2020 if severe measures are taken.

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