August 15, 2014 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
Following on information that the 2014 draft update of the Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment has been released to the public, the New England Fishery Management Council provides information about the peer review scheduled to evaluate the report.
Hosted by the Council and open to the public, the two-day meeting will be held at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel, 250 Market Street, in Portsmouth, NH on Thursday and Friday, August 28 and 29, 2014. It will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday and 8:30 a.m. on Friday.
The meeting also will be broadcast live via a public webinar. The details concerning access will be posted on the Council’s website in the near future.
Six members of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee and one external reviewer will serve as the panel of experts. The reviewers will evaluate whether the assessment successfully met the Terms of Reference – a set of specific tasks the assessment was directed to address. The assessment document, Terms of Reference, or ToRs, a list of the peer reviewers, and additional information is available at http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/saw/cod.
As discussed by NOAA Fisheries, the assessment update adds catch and survey data collected since 2012 to the existing benchmark assessment, and updates the status of Gulf of Maine cod through 2013. It is posted here, along with the terms of reference for the late August meeting.
For directions to the hotel and any additional information about the venue, please click www.sheratonportsmouth.com/.
The New England Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional organizations that were established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, initially enacted in 1976.
It develops rules for both commercial and recreational fisheries that operate between three and 200 miles off the region’s coastline. The Council’s management authority extends to fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and southern New England and overlaps with the Mid-Atlantic Council for some species.