Characterizing Groundfish Habitat and the Role of Marine Protected Areas

While marine protected areas (MPAs) have been promoted as a tool for the recovery and maintenance of fisheries stocks, there is very little in the way of scientific data to provide guidance on where these areas should be located, how large they need to be, and how they function with regard to habitat recovery and fisheries productivity.

A historically productive fishing area off the New Hampshire coast that is now closed to fishing provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate the impact of closures on habitat and fish production. The Jeffrey’s Ledge Closed Area is a 20-mile wide by 60-mile long area closed to bottom fishing. The ledge is one of the most important fish habitat areas in the Gulf of Maine and a major fishing ground for New England fleets. It was closed in 1997 to protect critically low levels of cod, haddock and other bottom fish.

In 2002, CINEMAR initiated an intensive fishing vessel-based monitoring program for Jeffrey’s Ledge to study the long-term biological, social and economic impacts of the closure. The research protocol will make use of three-dimensional multibeam mid-water sonar imagery, a new deep-water video system as well as cutting edge methods for characterizing area productivity, the presence of larval fish species, and the timing of recruitment of commercially important species. Though the project was only begun in the fall of 2002, many project activities including bottom habitat sampling, water column characterization, and multi-beam sonar mapping of areas inside and outside the closure area have been conducted. The studies by CINEMAR will seek to provide a comprehensive picture of the Jeffrey’s Ledge area with results that will be widely applicable to the science and policy of MPAs.

Annual Reports
2002 Annual Report
2003 Annual Report
2004 Annual Report
2005 Annual Report