Fish Stock Assessment Method: Virtual Population Analysis

Basic purpose of fish stock assessment is to provide advice on the optimum exploitation of aquatic living resources such as fish and shrimp. In fisheries, optimum exploitation is called Maximum Sustainable yield (MSY). Fishing effort level which gives the Maximum Sustainable yield is indicated by Maximum Sustainable effort. The understanding of concept about stock is very essential in fisheries before applying the fish stock assessment method. Stock can be defined as sub-set of one species having the same growth and mortality parameters, and inhabiting a particular geographical area. Growth parameters are numerical values in an equation by which we can predict the body size of a fish when it reaches a certain age and mortality parameters reflect the rate at which the animals die i.e. the number of deaths per time unit.