New England Fishery Management Council
Discussion of Proposal for a Habitat Area of Particular Concern for Juvenile Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) in the Nearshore Waters of the Gulf of Maine.by the Essential Fish Habitat Technical Team
-NEFMC Habitat Plan Development Team

Location: "Areas of existing Atlantic Cod EFH designation that are from Mean Low Water to 10 meters (33 feet) below Mean Low Water, extending from the international border with Canada southwestward along the entire western perimeter of the Gulf of Maine to Race Point, Provincetown, Massachusetts, including subtidal bottom to 10 m below MLW around all coastal islands."

Figure 4.1: This map displays the area proposed for Habitat Area of Particular Concern (HAPC) designation. Within the existing boundaries of EFH for juvenile Atlantic cod, the HAPC proposal includes all areas of the perimeter of the Gulf of Maine, from the mean low water (MLW) mark out to the 10 meter isobath.

This narrow depth range describes critical habitat from settlement (<5m) through the first autumn of life and overlaps seasonal habitat of age-1 juvenile cod. It also bounds the critical nursery zone for early benthic stages of American lobster as well as important juvenile habitat for some other groundfish.

Based on the information presented on juvenile Atlantic cod and the inshore areas of the Gulf of Maine, the EFH Technical Team suggests that the areas identified in this report and on Figure 4.1 meet the criteria for designation as an HAPC. A coastal HAPC designation would be justified on the criteria of ecological function and sensitivity to induced environmental degradation. An HAPC designation for the nearshore Gulf of Maine could assist in the enhancement of Atlantic cod, American lobster, and other groundfish species. Potential measures to protect this proposed HAPC are discussed below

The most practical approach for delineating an HAPC for settled age-0 cod is to circumscribe the reported center of distribution for this life stage throughout the range of the stock. The information available suggests that the HAPC should be from the low tide line to a depth of 10 m (33') MLW from eastern Maine to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, conforming to the center of distribution (4-7 m).

Consideration of a more encompassing HAPC to the depth range occupied by most age-0 cod would involve extending the isobath to at least the 20 m (66') and might be unjustifiably exclusionary to mobile gear fisheries conducted on sandy seafloor seaward of hard bottom habitat and generally >10 m, should these gears be restricted with the proposed HAPC.

The HAPC proposal should be somewhat flexible to allow modification as results from additional research and fine-scale resource mapping become available. For example, drawing a mean low water boundary of HAPC is problematic given knowledge that eelgrass beds may extend well inside embayments and river deltas, so drawing a shoreline boundary crossing from headland to headland versus across arbitrary points farther up estuary or river is initially convenient. Fine-scale mapping of most important habitat components might resolve the above dilemma and afford more localized protection to the most sensitive habitat components. It also could result in more permitted activities within the HAPC zone.

Future information could also prompt consideration of extending the HAPC into contiguous waters east of Cape Cod and south of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard into Buzzards Bay. For assessment purposes, cod inhabiting this area are considered part of the Georges Bank stock. Settled age-0 cod are taken nearshore in May by the Massachusetts DMF trawl survey (NEFMC 1998). There is no information on whether or not these fish survive the summer. They do not re-occur at larger size on later inshore surveys but that does not mean that the southern shore zone does not serve an important role relative to recruitment for the Georges Bank stock.

With consideration of the above caveats, the EFH Technical Team (now the Habitat Plan Development Team) suggested that the Habitat Committee consider designating an HAPC for subtidal age-0 Atlantic cod, within the existing juvenile Atlantic cod EFH designation, from MLW to 10 m (33') below MLW extending from the international border with Canada southwestward along the entire western perimeter of the Gulf of Maine to Race Point, Provincetown, Massachusetts, including subtidal bottom to 10 m below MLW around all coastal islands. This designation could be refined at a later date, depending on the availability of better information about the actual distribution and spatial extent of seagrasses and hard bottom habitats.
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