February 18, 2026 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has initiated a benchmark stock assessment for Atlantic migratory group cobia to be completed in 2027. The goals of the assessment are to evaluate the health of the stock along the Atlantic coast from Georgia northward to inform management. While updating the stock assessment model and datasets used in the 2020 benchmark stock assessment (SEDAR 58) will be considered, additional data sources and potential new models will also be explored due to data limitations and changes in management. The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, except for when confidential data are being discussed.

The Commission welcomes the submission of data sources that will contribute to the goals of the assessment. This includes, but is not limited to, data on growth, maturation, migration, tagging, natural mortality, environmental impacts, abundance/biomass, and fishery removals. Essential data needs for the Cobia assessment are fishery-independent data sources that can contribute to indices of abundance, data to inform the discards in fisheries, including size information, and bycatch in other directed fisheries. For data sets to be considered, the data must be sent in the required format, with accompanying description of methods, to the Commission by March 20, 2026. For more information on submitting data, including the appropriate format, please contact CJ Schlick. 

The Commission will hold multiple data workshops in the spring of 2026, with some webinar sessions and one in-person session, to review all available data sources and identify datasets to be incorporated in the stock assessment. The Data Workshops are open to the public, please contact Emilie Franke or visit https://asmfc.org/events/ for information on the workshops.