Arlington, VA – The Commission’s Coastal Pelagics Management Board approved for public comment Draft Addendum II to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Atlantic Cobia. The Draft Addendum considers recreational allocation, harvest target evaluation, and the timeline for setting management specifications.
The Board initiated the Draft Addendum to consider updating recreational allocations using harvest data, which reflects increased cobia landings in some Mid-Atlantic states in recent years. Draft Addendum II presents options for Atlantic cobia management, including a framework for recreational allocation, ways to account for data uncertainty and respond to quota overages, and an extended multi-year specification setting. For the recreational allocation framework, Draft Addendum II considers options for the data timeframe to form the basis for allocations, and options for the geographic scope of allocations (state-by- state, regional, or coastwide).
Public hearings on Draft Addendum II will be conducted in the coming months; the details of which will be released in a subsequent press release. The Draft Addendum will be available on the Commission’s website under Public Input at https://asmfc.org/about-us/public-input in late May.
For more information, please contact Emilie Franke, FMP Coordinator, at efranke@asmfc.org.