Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program The Chesapeake Bay supports commercial and recreational fisheries for a wide variety of species worth tens of millions of dollars to the local economies. The long term viability of these fisheries is dependent on effective management. To manage fisheries on the basis of "sustainable development" as defined in the latest reauthorization of the 'Magnuson' Sustainable Fisheries Act (P.L. 104-297) management regulations must be based on rational analysis of stock assessment results. Management entities in the Chesapeake Bay region are committed to strive toward the goal of ecosystem management 1. However, on a bay-specific spatial scale, formal stock assessments are routinely performed for only two species, namely, blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) and striped bass (Morone saxitilis). Despite a wealth of data, the assessment results for these species have historically been controversial. Moreover, there are a number of exploited species in the bay for which no historic fishing mortality information is available (e.g., Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulates), summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus), spot (Leiostomus xanthurus), weakfish (Cynoscion regalis), etc.). Bay-specific assessments for these species have not been performed (in part) because of a lack of fisheries-independent data. The Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program (ChesMMAP) trawl survey is designed to support bay-specific stock assessment activities at both a single and multispecies scale. While no single gear or monitoring program can collect all of the data necessary for quantitative assessments, ChesMMAP was designed to fulfill data gaps by maximizing the biological and ecological data collected for several recreationally and commercially important species in the bay. Specifically, it is working in support of a VIMS multispecies management modeling effort known as the Fisheries Ecosystem Modeling & Assessment Program (FEMAP)
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