Research & Statistics

The Commission conducts stock assessments on the majority of Commission-managed species in order to determine the health and status of the fish stock and to provide scientific advice to fisheries managers. It is important that these stock assessments are of high quality and are credible so as to provide confidence in the fisheries management process. The Commission has implemented a formal peer review process to evaluate the accuracy of all benchmark assessments (assessments with major changes in input data or model type). Another trigger for a formal peer review is the initiation of a new fishery management plan or amendment to an existing plan. The Commission’s stock assessment peer review process includes the regional programs coordinated by the National Marine Fisheries Service - the Northeast Stock Assessment Workshop/Stock Assessment Review Committee (SAW/SARC) and the Southeast Data and Assessment Review (SEDAR). The Commission also periodically conducts independent external peer reviews following a similar process.

The Commission has also conducted workshops and developed educational materials to provide hands-on training to state fishery biologists in quantitative population dynamics and stock assessment models. High level workshops have also been conducted for those state and federal stock assessment scientists in order to facilitate an exchange of information and provide advanced training in uncertainty principles and state-of-the-art modeling techniques.

Layman educational seminars are also periodically conducted for fisheries managers and stakeholders to increase the understanding of these complex models.

The Commission has initiated projects to improve the compilation of fisheries-dependent and fisheries-independent data. The original focus of this project is American lobster, but it is anticipated that other species will be included in the future. The electronic linkage of these data, with basic data manipulation, will increase the speed with which Commission stock assessments can be conducted.

Contacts