Arlington, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will hold the River Herring Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop on August 21-25 at the Westin Pentagon City, 1800 Richmond Highway, Arlington, VA. The stock assessment, which is scheduled for completion in early 2024, will evaluate the health of both alewife and blueback herring stocks (collectively referred to as river herring) along the Atlantic coast and inform management of these species. Both species were last assessed in 2017. The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data*, when the public will be asked to leave the room.
For more information about the assessment or attending the upcoming workshop (space is limited), please contact James Boyle, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at jboyle@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
* Each state and federal agency is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of its data and deciding who has access to its confidential data. In the case of our stock assessments and peer reviews, all analysts and, if necessary, reviewers, have been granted permission by the appropriate agency to use and view confidential data. When the assessment team needs to show and discuss these data, observers to our stock assessment process are asked to leave the room to preserve confidentiality.
About
In the early 1940s, recognizing that they could accomplish far more through cooperation rather than individual effort, the Atlantic coast states came together to form the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission). An Interstate Compact, ratified by the states and approved by the U.S. Congress in 1942, acknowledged the necessity of the states joining forces to manage their shared migratory fishery resources and affirmed the states’ commitment to cooperative stewardship in promoting and protecting Atlantic coastal fishery resources. The Commission’s mission is to promote the better utilization of the fisheries, marine, shell and anadromous, of the Atlantic seaboard by the development of a joint program for the promotion and protection of such fisheries, and by the prevention of physical waste of the fisheries from any cause.
