Putting It to Work: REEF Presents at Rockfish Conference

REEF Director of Science, Christy Pattengill-Semmens, and REEF Outreach Coordinator, Janna Nichols, attended a rockfish conference in Seattle earlier this week. The workshop, Rockfish Recovery in the Salish Sea: Research and Management Priorities, was organized by NOAA, WDFW, and the SeaDoc Society, and served as a venue for scientists, managers, and policy makers from throughout the region to share their work and help chart a course for future work. Christy presented an overview of REEF data collected throughout the Salish Sea, and showed distribution maps for 12 species of rockfish. The REEF Volunteer Survey Program expanded to the Northwest in 1998. To date, REEF volunteers have submitted 12,495 surveys from 781 sites throughout the Salish Sea. These data are a valuable information resource for those working to protect and restore declining rockfish populations. Several other active Pacific Northwest surveyors also attended the conference.