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About the Beaufort Lab

The NOAA laboratory in Beaufort is a partnership among three entities:

• NOAA Ocean Service, which owns the laboratory facility
• North Carolina Estuarine Research Reserve
• NOAA Fisheries Service Southeast Fisheries Science Center

Fisheries research at the Beaufort Laboratory is used to further the Nation's conservation objectives primarily under the:

• Sustainable Fisheries Act
• Coral Reef Conservation Act
• Marine Mammal Protection Act
• Endangered Species Act

Research is organized into three Branches:

• Fisheries Ecosystems
• Protected Resources
• Sustainable Fisheries

Research Objectives

• collect and analyze data describing the individual and population biology of living marine resources, with emphasis on exploited fish species (e.g., snappers and groupers), coral reefs (e.g., fish spawning aggregations), and protected resources (e.g., marine mammals and sea turtles).
• conduct research to understand the structure and function of the Southeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem
• assess fish stocks, primarily in the Atlantic
• work to understand fisheries ecosystems, primarily in the Atlantic
• assess population and health of sea turtles and dolphins, primarily in the Atlantic
• conduct aging of reef fishes
• collect data and samples and conduct assessments with commercial menhaden fisheries and recreational headboat fisheries in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico

Who We Are

The SEFSC Beaufort Program includes nearly 50 staff, including contractors, most of whom are located at the NOAA Beaufort Laboratory. We also have headboat port agents and menhaden samplers located from Reedville, VA, to Galveston, TX. In addition, we house staff from SEFSC's Miami Lab and Pascagoula Lab and from the Southeast Regional Office.