NEFMC EFH Desigations
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NEFMC EFH Desigations developed as part of Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2 Amendment 14 to the Northeast Multispecies FMP Amendment 14 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop FMP Amendment 4 to the Monkfish FMP Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Herring FMP Amendment 2 to the Red Crab FMP Amendment 2 to the Skate FMP Amendment 3 to the Atlantic Salmon FMP New England Fishery Management Council 50 Water Street, Mill 2 Newburyport, MA 01950 (978) 465-0492 tel. Essential Fish Habitat or EFH is define as those waters necessary for spawning, breeding, feeding, and growth to maturity. Regional Fishery Management Councils are required to desginate EFH per the 1996 reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Regulatory guidance about EFH designations and EFH consultations was published in 2002 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (Federal Register, Vol. 67, No. 12, p 2343-2383). This guidance recommends description and identification of EFH by species and lifestage, based on the best available sources of information. Per the guidance, both text descriptions of essential habitats as well as spatial depictions of the extent of EFH should be developed. The New England Fishery Management Council developed its current EFH designations via Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2 (OHA2). OHA2 represented the first update to the NEFMC’s original EFH designations, developed in 1999 or shortly thereafter. Development of OHA2 began in 2004, and the final regulations were implemented on April 9, 2018. The EFH designations were the primary focus of the first phase of work on the amendment, from 2004- 2007, but adjustments to the desginations were made throughout the process, up until final Council action in April and June of 2016. This document includes the text descriptions and map depictions of EFH for each species managed by NEFMC. Volume 2 of the OHA2 FEIS describes the previous (No Action) EFH designations, other mapping approaches considered, and the data sources used to generate each of the maps and should be referred to for additional background. In some instances, a single map was developed for multiple lifestages of a species based on limited data availability. The Geographic Information System (GIS) data files used to prepare the maps in this document were reviewed prior to publication on NOAA’s EFH Mapper in spring 2018. EFH maps are used in NOAA’s habitat conservation work, specifically in the EFH consultation process where NOAA makes habitat conservation recommendations to other federal agencies undertaking projects in marine and coastal environments. In consultation use, the resolution of these map products in the nearshore becomes important. For this reason, the final spatial data products published on the mapper were buffered along the coastline to ensure that there were no gaps in EFH coverage along the shore. Some other adjustments and corrections were also made at this time. Thus, in cases where there are slight visual discrepancies between the maps in this document and those published on the mapper, the mapper should be taken as the authoritative source. EFH map GIS data in shapefile format are available for download via the mapper. The Council’s webpage has links to the documents and guidance referenced above. July 2017 Page 2 of 83 1 Contents 1.1 Table of contents 1 Contents ................................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Table of contents .............................................................................................................. 3 1.2 Tables ............................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Maps ................................................................................................................................. 4 2 EFH Designations.................................................................................................................. 8 2.1 Northeast multispecies (groundfish) – large mesh species .............................................. 8 2.1.1 Acadian redfish ......................................................................................................... 8 2.1.2 American plaice ...................................................................................................... 10 2.1.3 Atlantic cod ............................................................................................................. 14 2.1.4 Atlantic halibut........................................................................................................ 17 2.1.5 Atlantic wolffish ..................................................................................................... 18 2.1.6 Haddock .................................................................................................................. 19 2.1.7 Ocean pout .............................................................................................................. 23 2.1.8 Pollock .................................................................................................................... 26 2.1.9 White hake .............................................................................................................. 30 2.1.10 Windowpane flounder ............................................................................................. 33 2.1.11 Winter flounder ....................................................................................................... 37 2.1.12 Witch flounder ........................................................................................................ 43 2.1.13 Yellowtail flounder ................................................................................................. 45 2.2 Northeast multispecies (groundfish) – small mesh species ............................................ 49 2.2.1 Silver hake .............................................................................................................. 49 2.2.2 Red hake.................................................................................................................. 52 2.2.3 Offshore hake .......................................................................................................... 54 2.3 Monkfish ........................................................................................................................ 56 2.4 Skates ............................................................................................................................. 59 2.4.1 Smooth skate ........................................................................................................... 60 2.4.2 Thorny skate............................................................................................................ 62 2.4.3 Barndoor skate ........................................................................................................ 63 2.4.4 Little skate ............................................................................................................... 64 2.4.5 Winter skate ............................................................................................................ 66 2.4.6 Rosette skate ........................................................................................................... 67 July 2017 Page 3 of 83 2.4.7 Clearnose skate ....................................................................................................... 68 2.5 Atlantic sea scallop......................................................................................................... 70 2.6 Atlantic herring .............................................................................................................. 72 2.7 Deep-sea red crab ........................................................................................................... 76 2.8 Atlantic salmon .............................................................................................................. 78 1.2 Tables Table 1 – American plaice EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. .............................. 11 Table 2 – Atlantic cod EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. ..................................... 14 Table 3 – Haddock EFH designation for estuaries and embayments ........................................... 20 Table 4 – Ocean pout EFH designation for estuaries and embayments ....................................... 24 Table 5 – Pollock EFH designation for estuaries and embayments .............................................. 27 Table 6 – White hake EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. ...................................... 30 Table 7 – Windowpane flounder EFH designation for estuaries and embayments ...................... 34 Table 8 – Winter flounder EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. ............................... 38 Table 9 – Yellowtail flounder EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. ......................... 46 Table 10 – Silver hake EFH designation in estuaries and embayments ....................................... 49 Table 11 – Red hake EFH designation for estuaries and embayments ......................................... 52 Table 12 – Skate EFH designation for estuaries and embayments. All designations are for the full salinity zone only (> 25.0‰), unless otherwise noted. ................................................................. 59 Table 13 – Atlantic sea scallop EFH