The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has begun work on the first coastwide stock assessment of black drum.

The assessment will evaluate the health of the black drum stock and will be used to inform fishery management activities.

The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public (with the exception of discussion of confidential data).

The Commission welcomes the submission of data sets that can be used in the assessment. This includes, but is not limited to growth, maturation, migration, genetics, tagging, recruitment, natural mortality (including environmental data), indices of abundance, biosample, and catch data.

For data sets to be considered at the Data Workshop, the data must be sent in the required format, with accompanying methods description, to the Commission at least one month prior to the Data Workshop.

The Data Workshop will take place April 15-19, 2013 at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, 217 Fort Johnson Road, Charleston, South Carolina. 

All available data will be reviewed and vetted by the Black Drum Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee for possible use in the Assessment Workshop.

The Assessment Workshop will occur at a date and location to be determined following the Data Workshop.

For those interested in submitting data and/or attending the black drum data workshop (space is limited), please contact Jeff Kipp, ASMFC Stock Assessment Scientist, for details at jkipp@asmfc.org or 703.842.0746.

The deadline for data submission is March 15th, 2013.

There is the possibility of additional Data/Assessment Workshops if the Black Drum Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee deem it necessary.

Additional workshops will be announced through the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org.

Back to Top