WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) — December 16, 2013 — Georges Bank is home to some of the most important fishing grounds in New England. But large portions of it have been off-limits to commercial groundfishermen and scallopers for almost twenty years, with a network of closed areas in place intended to restore habitat and assist in the rebuilding of fish populations. Now that network is up for revision with the Omnibus Habitat Amendment, which is currently being considered by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC).
The Amendment process has sparked a debate among fishermen, scientists, and environmental groups over these areas’ future. Questions have been raised over whether they are best left closed to facilitate conservation, or if the scallop and groundfish fleets should once again be allowed access to some of the most abundant fishery areas in the region. Added to that, is a discussion as to whether or not these closures have even benefited groundfish at all.
One of the most hotly debated closed areas is the one containing parts of the Northern Edge of Georges Bank. The area was initially included in the first round of area closures in 1994, which were designed to curb groundfish fishing mortality. Later in the decade, it was labeled a Habitat Area of Particular Concern (HAPC) as part of an effort to officially recognize the area’s perceived value as a groundfish habitat. Since the initial closures, scallopers have been prohibited from entering this portion of the Northern Edge.
The Northern Edge and the Scallop Fishery
Historically, the area has been one of the most productive scallop grounds in New England, with this relatively small portion of Georges Bank being home to some of the largest and densest concentrations of scallops in the region. In the two decades since first being closed, an entire generation of scallops (the species has a maximum life expectancy of 16 years) has gone unharvested, representing a significant loss of potential yield for the scallop fishery. There is strong evidence that the area has retained its historic abundance of scallops, one of the most valuable resources in New England.
A 2012 survey by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) confirms this abundance, having found an estimated 20-25 million pounds of scallops located in the boundaries of the Northern Edge HAPC. Other studies estimate that the Northern Edge may contain as much as 10 percent of the Georges Bank scallop population.
The scallop industry has argued that opening areas of the Northern Edge to scallopers would allow the fleet to once again access scallop grounds that have historically been an integral part of the fishery. It would allow the harvest of potentially millions of pounds of scallops that would otherwise be lost. And, by allowing access to an abundant scallop area, an opening of the Northern Edge would decrease fishing effort, thereby minimizing the amount of time scallop gear interacts with the ocean bottom in general. This not only benefits the scallop fishery, by making it more efficient, but also the overall marine ecosystem.
The Northern Edge and Groundfish
The value of the Northern Edge as a habitat for scallops and cod also factors into the current debate. Several habitat features make the area an ideal scallop ground: the Northern Edge’s gravelly substrate allows developing scallops to settle on the ocean bottom, and the prevailing currents in Georges Bank bring a large number of scallop larvae through the area. But the same facets of the Northern Edge ecosystem that have been such a boon to scallop populations may also prove valuable to the life cycles of other species, particularly cod.
Juvenile cod settle and pass through the Northern Edge in the summer months, driven by the same currents that carry so many scallops into the region. Several studies conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s found that, while in the Northern Edge, cod may benefit from some of the area’s more complex habitats, including areas with gravel, larger rock formations, and significant amounts of aquatic plants.
One study, conducted in 1991 by the U.S. Geological Survey, found that many of the species in the Northern Edge “exhibit a close relationship with the sea floor environment during a part of their life cycle,” and that one of the most important factors in maintaining biological diversity was the area’s gravel habitats. In contrast to sandy bottoms, which are too unstable to support much permanent habitat, gravelly areas allow for the development of aquatic plants and other habitat features that support a wide array of marine life. Only a small portion of the American segment of the Northern Edge contains such gravel habitats. Nearly 90 percent of the gravelly areas along the Northern Edge are found on the Canadian side of the border.
Based on the amount of juvenile cod observed in these areas, the USGS study concluded that the gravel habitats might provide several benefits to the species, including protection from predators, and a reliable source of food. These insights, supported by several other studies, provided much of the foundation for the 1998 decision to designate the area an HAPC.
Maintaining the HAPC designation and other area closures in Georges Bank is a key goal of several prominent environmental groups, who have been critical of many of the current options in the Omnibus Amendment. The Conservation Law Foundation called the Amendment “a squandered opportunity” to enhance habitat protections, and accused the NEFMC of “elevating the short-term desires of industry above the need to protect habitat for the long-term benefit of stocks, the fleet and the ecosystem.”
The Environmental Defense Fund, while supportive of the overall Omnibus Amendment process, has been critical of the proposals for Georges Bank. In a letter to the Chairman of the NEFMC, they wrote that “the alternatives on the table are entirely unacceptable,” further adding that the proposals do not meet the goals of “minimizing adverse impacts to [Essential Fish Habitats] and enhancing groundfish productivity.” Other groups have sought to expand, rather than open, the HAPC. In one proposal to the NEFMC that was ultimately not included in the Omnibus Amendment, the Ocean Conservancy recommended that the HAPC be enlarged to include areas west of the current HAPC’s boundaries.
The Future of the Northern Edge
At the heart of the current debate over the Northern Edge are two questions: whether the current habitat closure is essential for groundfish, like cod, and whether scallop fishing in these areas will lead to long-lasting negative effects on the region’s habitats. Unfortunately, since going into effect, there has been little follow-up research to confirm what effect the HAPC closure in Georges Bank has had on the area’s juvenile cod, or whether the species has specifically benefited from the Northern Edge closure.
“The directed science in the area has been spotty at best,” said Richard Taylor. An experienced scalloper and scallop researcher, Mr. Taylor works on HabCam, a seafloor mapping project that has collected data in many areas of the Atlantic, including Georges Bank. He added that the current debate is “more of a political and economic question than a scientific one,” citing the fact that the majority of juvenile cod caught in several trawl surveys was actually found in near-shore areas on the coast.
Mr. Taylor emphasized that, regardless of the outcome of the Omnibus Amendment process, there needs to be a committed effort to conduct follow-up monitoring on the effects and the efficacy of the closures. “We’re enacting these regulations and not making a strong commitment to understanding their utility,” he said. According to Mr. Taylor, long-term monitoring of the closed areas is the only way to determine if the Amendment is actually achieving its goals.
“The chances of us getting it right the first time were one in a million. The chances of us getting it right the second time without continued monitoring are not much higher.”
While the effects of the HAPC closure have not been closely studied, a substantial amount of research has been conducted on the effects of fishing in areas similar to the Northern Edge. A 2006 study from researchers at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) compared the HAPC with recently fished areas on Georges Bank. It found no significant differences in habitat between the two. SMAST also published, in 2010 and 2012, maps detailing sediment type and the impact of tidal forces on the Georges Bank seabed. These maps show that much of the sediment in the Northern Edge is of the granule-pebble variety, a type of sediment that likely remains stable despite high amounts of natural disturbances.
Currently, several proposals for modifying the Northern Edge stand before the Council via the Omnibus Amendment. They reflect a wide range of scientifically acceptable scenarios, each of which presents unique methods for balancing conservationist concerns with the needs of fishermen and their communities. While one of these options maintains the status quo and preserves the existing closed areas, most of the proposals allow the scallop fleet some kind of access by reducing the size of the current area closures. The proposals also still reserve parts of the Northern Edge for habitat preservation.
Resolving the status of the Northern Edge is of critical importance to the scallop fleet, which has been cut off from one of the largest concentrations of one of New England’s most important resources. But it is also crucial that any opening be carried out in a way that best protects and preserves the habitat therein. These two goals, providing for economic opportunity and habitat preservation, are not mutually exclusive. The range of options available to the Council considers both the needs of the fishery and the needs of the environment, indicating that an environmentally and economically sustainable solution is possible.
References
Harris, B.P. and Stokesbury K.D.E., “The Spatial Structure of Local Surficial Sediment Characteristics on Georges Bank, USA,” Continental Shelf Research 30(17): 1840–1853, 2010
Harris, B.P.; Cowles, G. W.; Stokesbury, K.D.E., “Surficial Sediment Stability on Georges Bank in the Great South Channel and on eastern Nantucket Shoals,” Continental Shelf Research 49(2012) 65–72, 2012
Howe, A.B.; Correia, S.J.; Currier, T.P.; King, J.; Johnston, R., “Spatial Distribution of Ages 0 and 1 Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) off the Eastern Massachusetts Coast, 1978-1999, Relative to ‘Habitat Area of Special Concern,’” Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, 2002
Lough, R.; Valentine, Page; Potter, David; Auditore, Peter; Bolz, George; Neilson, John; Perry, R, “Ecology and distribution of juvenile cod and haddock in relation tosediment type and bottom currents on eastern Georges Bank,” Marine Ecology Progress Series, August 10, 1989
New England Fishery Management Council, “Draft Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment 2,” September, 2013
Rudders, David; DuPaul, William; Bergeron, Jessica, “An Inventory of the Sea Scallop Resource in the Georges Bank Closed Area II and Surrounds,” Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Northeast Fisheries Science Center Cooperative Research Program, 2012
Stokesbury, K.D.E.; Harris, B.P., “Impact of a limited fishery for sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, on the epibenthic community of Georges Bank closed areas,” Marine Ecology Progress Series, 307:85-100, 2006
Valentine, P. C; Lough, R. G., “The influence of geological and oceanographic environmental factors on the abundance and distribution of fisheries resources of the northeastern United States continental shelf: The seafloor environment and the fishery of eastern Georges Bank,” US Geological Survey Open File Report 91-439, 1991