May 29, 2026 — The Northeast Fisheries Science Center held a two-hour webinar May 22 kicking off a new season of mackerel cooperative research and looking for fishermen to share their skills and knowledge with scientists.
According to Anna Mercer, chief of the NEFSC’s cooperative research branch, fishermen bring valuable experience to collecting and interpreting data, which will help fill research gaps and improve models of reproduction, migration, and the effects of environmental drivers on population dynamics.
Mercer notes that for the purposes of the stock assessment, the most critical information gaps include: how mackerel move between US and Canadian waters; when and where mackerel spawn; whether mackerel exhibit spawning site fidelity; how mackerel abundance and varies from year to year; and what environmental factors—such as temperature, plankton, predators, and others—drive the distribution and abundance of Atlantic mackerel.