Continued concerns over the sustainability and impacts of many commercial fisheries has lead to an increase in the application of multispecies approaches to management. Indeed, management agencies in the Chesapeake region are committed to implementing multispecies management by 2007. However, implementing multispecies approaches places great demands on our understanding and requires extensive amounts of monitoring data.

In 1996, Ed Houde, Elizabeth Watkins and I synthesized information on the potential for implementing multispecies approaches to the Chesapeake Bay (Miller et al. 1996). This proved to be a very influential report - available below

Chesapeake Bay Fisheries: Prospects for Multispecies Management and Sustainability

We concluded that there was strong evidence of multispecies interactions in Chesapeake Bay, but the available data were not sufficient to implement multispecies management. Subsequently, we hosted an international workshop to recommend a pathway to implementation (Houde et al. 1999).

The three multispecies research projects currently ongoing in QuaFEL are direct outgrowths of these early efforts. In the NOAA-funded Chesapeake Bay Fishery Independent Multispecies Survey (CHESFIMS) program we are seeking to continue and expand a bay wide survey of bentho-pelagic fishes. CHESFIMS's objective is to provide data that will be the foundation of future multispecies efforts. In a second project, funded by NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program, we are seeking to develop short, medium and long-term forecasts of the Chesapeake Bay fish community, and how it responds to biotic and abiotic factors. Finally, Tom Miller is a member of a panel of scientists developing the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Fishery Ecosystem Plan. This plan will provide a framework to guide future revisions of existing single-species fishery management plans.

CHESFIMS - the Chesapeake Bay Fishery Independent Multispecies Survey

SYNTIES - Forecasting of the Chesapeake Bay fishery ecosystem

Chesapeake Bay FEP - a regional effort to develop guidelines for the implementation of ecosystem-based management in Chesapeake Bay. We have produced the Total Removals section.

Delaware Estuary Fishery Ecosystem Model