Updated September 2020
Topics
- Status and trends in emerging/declining fisheries (cannonball jellyfish and whelk, respectively) as they relate to harvest, abundance, participation and ecological impact
- Estimates of hooking mortality in the catch-and-release recreational fisheries
- Complete knowledge of the life history of exploited estuarine and marine fishes indigenousto coastal Georgia
- Evaluate the role of instream flow (and drought) as it relates to species abundance, estuarineproductivity, and overall health of coastal ecosystems
- Improve fishery assessments, with increased/coordinated fishery-dependent and fishery-independent monitoring/surveys region-wide
- Identify critical habitats (spawning, nursery, etc.) for commercially and recreationallyimportant species (shrimp, blue crabs, Red Drum, Spotted Seatrout, Southern Kingfish,Sheepshead, Southern Flounder, Tripletail, etc.)
- Characterization/quantification of impacts to Essential and Critical Fish habitats and fisheriesand ecosystem productivity
- Economic impacts of saltwater fishing tournaments, artificial reefs, and for-hire charterbusinesses
- Georgia’s fishing fleet, what is the condition of the current fleet and future forecast with thereduction in working shorelines? Average age of vessel, sea worthiness, and where are thevessels originating from?
- Monitor the abundance and distribution of introduced/invasive species and evaluate theirimpacts on native fauna
- Characterization of discards associated with recreational fisheries, specifically Red Drum andBlack Sea Bass.