2018 updated south coast rock lobster assessment results

The 2017 assessment of the resource is updated given two further years of catch-at-length data now available. Recruitment is estimated to have increased over the last two seasons compared to the previous three seasons when recruitment was estimated to be poor. The spawning biomass trajectory decreases slightly over recent years. Current spawning biomass is estimated to be 27% of K. The RC MSY estimate is 259 MT at a Bsp/K of 0.27. Fmsy is estimated to be 0.112. The RC model thus estimates that the resource is currently slightly above Bmsy