| Summary: | The aim of this paper is to present the status of NAFO roughhead grenadier Subarea 2 and 3 stock based on different assessments models using all the available information. Different assessment methods have been applied based on the data available described above. The assessment was carried out with three different methods: Extended Survivors Analysis (XSA, Shepherd, 1999; Darby and Flatman, 1994), a Stock-Production Model Incorporating Covariates (ASPIC, Prager 1994 and 2004) and a qualitative assessment based on survey and fishery information. XSA and ASPIC results are considered uncertainties due to the low Fishing mortality estimated compare with the natural mortality level assumed in the case of the XSA and due to the lack of contrast in the data used in the ASPIC case. Although all these problem both models results present a very similar trend in the fishing mortality and biomass values and are comparable to the qualitative assessment base on the Canadian fall survey series (Div. 2J+3K) and the Spanish survey in Divisions 3NO that there are considered by the NAFO Scientific Council as the best survey information to monitor trends in resource status. Biomass presents in all methods a general increased trend in the analysed period with its maximum level in the last years. With regard to fishing mortality estimates from different methods, it can be observed that the trends of the different estimations of F were very similar and that the actual level of F is the minimum of the period due to the increase of the biomass and the decrease of the caches in the last years. The strong 2001 year class have been weaker than expected since 2005 in both survey indices. The level of the recruitment in last period appears to be smaller than the observer before.
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