Assessment of the Cod Stock in NAFO Division 3M

An assessment of the cod stock in NAFO Division 3M is performed. A Bayesian model, as used in the last assessments, was used to perform the analysis. As there are inconsistencies with total catch of last year, a prior was added for 2011 catch. Results indicate a fairly substantial increase in SSB, reaching a value well above Blim. The sixyears retrospective plot shows that the recruitment is overestimated every year. Three year projections indicate that fishing at the Fstatusquo level should allow SSB to increase slowly, although abundance will remain at levels below those observed at the beginning of the series. If the fishing mortality were return to the levels seen before 1995, stock recovery would become improbable