Input data comes from the EU Flemish Cap bottom trawl survey and the fishery. A quantitative model (XSA) introduced in 2003 was used. Increased natural mortality was assumed from 2006 to 2010, but natural mortality was low (more typical of redfish) in other years. There is no evidence that natural mortality has increased recently from the level of 0.1 adopted in the 2017 assessment, and therefore, the 2021 XSA assessment was run with average M from 2015 onwards kept at 0.1.

The next full assessment of this stock will be in 2023.

Fishing Mortality

Recruitment

Biomass

Human impact

Mainly fishery related mortality. Other sources (e.g. pollution, shipping, oil-industry) are undocumented.

Biological and environmental interactions

Since 2004 a rapid increase was observed on survey biomass both of golden (Sebastes marinus) and Acadian (Sebastes fasciatus) redfish stocks. Due to their shallower depth distributions these two redfish species overlap with cod to an extent greater than deep sea redfish (Sebastes mentella). Since 2006, the cod stock started to recover, while those two redfish stocks declined sharply. Redfish is an important component in the diet of cod, especially on those years when successful recruitment events were observed in redfish stocks.