Proceedings of the Workshop on Walleye Pollock and Its Ecosystem in the Eastern Bering Sea : Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center, Seattle, Washington, 2-4 May, 1983

The 1982 National Marine Fisheries Service Strategic Plan states that the mission of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is to: "Achieve a continued optimum utilization of living marine resources for the benefit of the nation." It goes on to state that: "In carrying out our mission, we are building for the long term. One of our most important tasks is maintaining a proper balance between short-term performance and investment for maintaining strength in the future." Under National Objective 1, the plan states that NMFS should "establish or maintain research programs that reduce critical information gaps in our understanding of marine ecosystems." The plan further states that, among other things, the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center (NWAFC) should: (a) "Conduct status of stocks, bioeconomics, and ecosystem analyses required to establish Optimum Yields (OY’s) for multispecies fisheries; (b) "Conduct multispecies ecosystem research to achieve increased understanding of species interactions and effects of perturbations, including fishing, on abundance; (c) "For important commercial species in the Alaska fishery conservation zone (FCZ) conduct multispecies research on causes underlying recruitment variations in ecosystems; (d) "Accelerate work on (the) fur seal sub-element in (the) ecosystem model in order to determine (the) magnitude of other factors impacting (the) fur seal population." 1984 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) NWFSC (Northwest Fisheries Science Center) AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) Submitted Public Domain 1864