Fishery Council Wants Your Input On Future Management

[JasonD]

Greetings, everybody. I work for the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) and hope you can help get the word out on something that is going to have a major impact on management of the species the Council manages: summer flounder (fluke), scup (porgy), black sea bass, bluefish, Atlantic mackerel, squid, butterfish, spiny dogfish, tilefish, surfclam, and ocean quahog.

Now that most of these stocks are rebuilt (see graph below) the Council has just launched a unique initiative to determine a new long-term strategy for its fisheries. Since most folks don't have time to come to meetings, the Council is offering a number of ways for you to provide input, including the opportunity to fill out a general survey and species-specific surveys. This is an excellent way to let the Council know what's working and what's not working in fisheries that are important to you. It only takes a few minutes - You can link to the surveys, find other ways to get involved, and learn more about the project here: http://www.mafmc.org/vision/. If you have any questions I'll be checking the board regularly or you can contact Mary Clark, the project lead, at 302-526-5261 or mclark@mafmc.org.

Thanks,
Jason Didden

PS I'm going to be posting about this on several sites but please also send this message/link around to your colleagues, friends, associates, etc. because the Council will begin developing and implementing its new long term strategy after it gathers input, comments, and thoughts from its constituents.

[gottaflylee]

Jason, thanks for posting this. I hope that science will be the major model that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council keeps using to make decisions as the the health of the stock along with good recovery data. Being able to post catches on line will help.

[JasonD]

Just wanted to pass along thanks to everyone who has been visiting the survey site (http://www.mafmc.org/vision/). We have been getting linked-to from SportFishermen a good bit and we appreciate your time and thoughts. The survey is going to be available for a couple of months but I will be sure to post when results are available.

Best regards,
Jason