Assessment of the Cod Stock in NAFO Division 3M

• Main Authors: González-Troncoso, D. (Diana), Fernández-Llana, C. (Carmen)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo 2009
• Subjects: North Atlantic; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10508/621

An assessment of the stauts of the cod stock in NAFO Division 3M is performed. The same model used last year, a Bayesian model, is used to perform the assessment. Results indicate another reasonable recruitment value in 2008 and a fairly substantial increase in SSB, reaching a median value above the Blim for the first time since 1995. The six-years retrospective plot shows that the recruitment is over estimated year by year, and that if we assume a prior distribution under the natural mortality the retrospective pattern seems no to converge, so the model running with M constant equal to 2 is presented too. It results are no significantly different as those assuming M with uncertainty. Three year projections indicate that fishing at the low Fbar level currently estimated for 2008 should allow SSB to increase to higher levels than estimated for the late 1980's, although in terms of abundance the stock will remain at lower levels. If the fishing mortality were return to the levels seen until 1995, stock recovery would become very improbable.