Concept and objectives of stock assessment

Among all the exploited natural animal resources, fisheries resources are the largest. The \nmagnitude, dynamics and resilience of fish stock pose great challenge to their assessment as \nwell as management. The fishery resources are unique at least on three factors (Vivekanandan, \n2005). (i) Many species have wide spatial distribution. (ii) Several species show wide temporal \nvariations in abundance. (iii) Since the resources cannot be seen visually, gaining an insight \ninto the structure and function of the resources is a challenge. It is reported that 667 marine \nspecies are fished (Sathianandan et al., 2013) by 194,490 boats (DAHDF and CMFRI, 2012) \nalong the Indian coast, showing the dynamism of fisheries. To exploit these resources, to \nmanage and develop the fisheries, and to conserve the fish stocks, it is essential to have \naccurate information on these stocks such as how much or how many are present in the \nsea, what is their reproductive capacity, their growth potential, etc.