February 14, 2023 — The following was released by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has initiated benchmark stock assessments for spot, Atlantic croaker, and red drum to be completed in 2024. The goals of the assessments are to evaluate the health of stocks along the Atlantic coast and inform management of these species. The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data.
The Commission welcomes the submission of data sources that will contribute to the goals of the assessments. This includes, but is not limited to, data on growth, maturation, migration, tagging, natural mortality, environmental impacts, abundance/biomass, and fishery removals. An essential need is data to inform the stock assessments of discards, including size information, and bycatch in other directed fisheries. For data sets to be considered, the data must be sent in the required format, with accompanying description of methods, to the Commission by March 15, 2023.
The Commission will hold two Data Workshops in the spring of 2023, one for spot and Atlantic croaker and one for red drum, to review all available data sources and identify datasets to be incorporated in the stock assessments. The Data Workshops are open to the public, please contact Tracey Bauer (tbauer@asmfc.org) for information on the workshops. For more information on submitting data, including the appropriate format, please contact Kristen Anstead (kanstead@asmfc.org) for spot and Atlantic croaker or Jeff Kipp (jkipp@asmfc.org) for red drum.