The History of the SEAMAP Program

The Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP), begun in 1982, is a cooperative state and federal program for collecting, managing, and disseminating fishery-independent data in the southeastern United States. Scientists conducting resource surveys aboard research vessels collect the data.

Fishery-independent data provide essential information on abundance and distribution of fish and environmental changes that are used by fisheries managers, academic researchers and fishing industry (commercial and recreational) personnel. SEAMAP is a successful federally funded state and federal partnership in which the participants work jointly toward common goals to obtain and utilize scientific information on living marine resources.

Fishery management and research agencies at the state and federal levels share interest in and responsibilities for common fisheries resources, but often lack the funding to support regional surveys throughout the geographic range of the fish. All of the partners contribute funding, expertise, sampling platforms and gear, making it a cost-effective program. Data collected by the program are shared among all program participants.

SEAMAP data sets are particularly useful in fisheries stock assessments because of their quality and time series. Specific examples of fisheries for which SEAMAP data are now being used to support management decisions include red snapper and shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, Spanish mackerel, rock shrimp, and weakfish in the South Atlantic, and red hind in the Caribbean. In addition, SEAMAP has conducted other important activities, such as special studies, workshops, data management, dissemination information and specimen archiving.

The SEAMAP curators maintain specimens and samples, process specimen requests and insure archiving and loans are carried out in accordance with approved policies and procedures. The SEAMAP Ichthyoplankton Archiving Center (SAC), located at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, houses sorted fish and fish egg samples collected through the program. The specimens represent twenty-two years of surveys from the entire (U.S. waters) Gulf of Mexico.

The SEAMAP Archiving Center currently houses 275,000 cataloged lots. Sampling cruises are seasonal and most of the samples collected are from 61 cm Bongo nets and 1 x 2 m Neuston nets towed to a depth of 200 meters or within 2 meters of the bottom at shallower stations. Associated hydrographic data is also collected and available. Below is an example of the annual survey coverage area.

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To request additional information, please contact:

Kim Williams
SEAMAP Collection Manager
FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 8th Avenue SE
St. Petersburg, FL 33701-5095
(727) 896-8626 Fax (727) 823-0166
E-mail: SEAMAP@MyFWC.com