The combined 2018 Canada/USA Atlantic cod catches were 565 mt with a quota of 951 mt. Two of the three research survey biomass indices increased from last year, but all three remain below their time series average. Condition factor is at or above the long-term mean for two surveys but remains at low levels for the other survey. Large cod continue to be missing from both fishery and survey catch compared to historical distributions. Relative fishing mortality continues to be low recently while survey total mortality continues to be high recently indicating that something other than reported fishing is driving the increase in total mortality for Eastern Georges Bank cod.

Technical Report