Scallop Fishery Assessment of the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2018: Commercial Fishery and Survey Data.

This document presents the commercial fishery indicators used for the sea scallop stock assessment conducted in 2018 for the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence inshore waters up to the 2016 fishing season. The document includes methodologies, commercial fishery statistics, and results from research surveys (2012-2016). We present landings, effort and catch rates at the Scallop Fishing Area (SFA) level and the bed level for the available time series (2003 to 2016). A Leslie model was used for the first time to estimate exploitable biomass and exploitation rates for the two major beds of SFA 22, Cape Tormentine, and West Point, for each year of available data (2003 to 2016). We also present estimates for certain years (2003, 2011 and 2012) of the Pictou bed in SFA 24; the model did not fit the data properly for the other years. Depletion estimates for the SFA 21A bed are presented for years in which the model was able to be fit (2003, 2005, 2006, 2013 and 2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]