Bridging the Modeling-Management Gap in Chesapeake Bay: Utilizing the Fisheries Ecosystem Plan to Identify, Carry-Out, and Ultimately Implement Ecosystem Models into the Fisheries Management Process

The Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Goal Implementation Team of the Chesapeake Bay Program has a defined mission to “Restore, enhance, and protect the finfish, shellfish, and other living resources, their habitats and ecological relationships to sustain all fisheries and provide for a balanced ecosystem in the watershed and Bay.”  The Goal Team (and its predecessor group – the Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Steering Committee), have committed to an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management including the development and incorporation of multispecies models into management programs.  These models require ecosystem-level data including inter-jurisdictional research and monitoring and subsequently implementation across a broad range of political forces (states, Commissions, Councils).     

In this presentation, I review the development of the guidance document, “Fisheries Ecosystem Planning for Chesapeake Bay”, and how the capabilities of multispecies and ecosystem models are further developed and integrated into the complicated management process that is the Chesapeake Bay.