Assessment of Newfoundland and Labrador (divisions 2HJ3KLNOP4R) snow crab / : 2HJ3KLNOP4R snow crab

With the exception of 2014 the pre-recruit biomass index has been relatively low in recent years and was at its lowest level in 2015. [...] Fishery-induced mortality is a function of the proportion of the exploitable population that is harvested and the proportion of the pre-recruit population that dies as a result of being caught, handled, and released. [...] However, this is inconsistent with the lack of increase in the pre-recruit biomass index in recent years. [...] Since the collapse of most of the finfish community in the early 1990s, the Snow Crab resource appears to have largely been under bottom-up temperature control (Fig. [...] Data for the current year is typically incomplete at the time of the assessment and thus the associated CPUE and effort values are potentially biased and considered preliminary.