Role of Stock Assessment in Fisheries Management

Abstract

Stock assessment involves the use of various statistical and mathematical calculations to make quantitative predictions about the reactions of fish populations to alternative management choices. Two key words are critical in this thumbnail definition: quantitativeand choices. The basic concern of stock assessment is to go beyond the obvious qualitative predictions that any student of nature should be able to make about natural limits to production, risks of overfishing spawning populations, the need to allow fish to grow to a reasonable size before they are harvested, and so forth. Furthermore, it does not make sense to engage in the risky and often embarrassing business of quantitative prediction in settings where there are no management choices to be made in the first place, except perhaps as an aid to scientific thinking and hypothesis formulation