Description: Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) is defined as those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity (16 U.S.C. 1802(10)). Waters include aquatic areas and their associated physical, chemical, and biological properties that are used by fish and may include aquatic areas historically used by fish where appropriate; substrate includes sediment, hard bottom, structures underlying the waters, and associated biological communities; necessary means the habitat required to support a sustainable fishery and the managed species' contribution to a healthy ecosystem; and spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity covers a species' full life cycle. This particular layer represents an overlay of EFH polygons for numerous species. The Nature Conservancy obtained individual EFH layers from NOAA. This layer does not represent EFH for individual species but rather the number of overlapping EFH in any given location. The following species are included:American Plaice, Atlantic Cod, Atlantic Halibut, Atlantic Herring, Atlantic Sea Scallop, Atlantic Wolffish, Barndoor Skate, Black Sea Bass, Bluefish, Butterfish, Clearnose Skate, Haddock, Little Skate, Longfin Inshore Squid, Mackerel, Monkfish, Northern Shortfin Squid, Ocean Pout, Offshore Hake, Pollock, Quahog, Redfish, Red Crab, Red Hake, Rosette Skate, Scup, Silver Hake, Smooth Skate, Spiny Dogfish, Surfclam, Summer Flounder, Tilefish, Thorny Skate, White Hake, Windowpane Flounder, Winter Flounder, Winter Skate, Witch Flounder, and Yellowtail Flounder.
Definition Expression: N/A
Copyright Text: NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service; The Nature Conservancy
Description: This dataset is an aggregation of numerous Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) spatial data products for Highly Migratory Species (HMS), which are fish such as tuna, sharks, and swordfish that live and migrate throughout the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) manages HMS under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which requires the identification of EFH in fishery management plans. This includes impacts from fishing and non-fishing activities on EFH, and the identification of actions required to conserve and enhance EFH, which is defined as those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity. The source data for this product included 42 available Highly Migratory Species EFH datasets from NMFS as of the publication date. The dataset contains a field for each species indicating whether EFH is present within each feature record. An additional field was added to count the total number of overlapping species within each area. Species represented in this product are: Albacore Tuna, Angel Shark, Atlantic Sharpnose Shark, Basking Shark, Bigeye Thresher Shark, Bigeye Tuna, Bignose Shark, Blacknose Shark, Blacktip Shark, Bluefin Tuna, Blue Marlin, Blue Shark, Bonnethead Shark, Bull Shark, Caribbean Reef Shark, Common Thresher Shark, Dusky Shark, Finetooth Shark, Great Hammerhead Shark, Lemon Shark, Longbill Spearfish, Longfin Mako Shark, Night Shark, Nurse Shark, Oceanic Whitetip Shark, Porbeagle Roundscale Spearfish, Shark, Sailfish, Sandbar Shark, Sand Tiger Shark, Scalloped Hammerhead Shark, Shortfin Mako Shark, Silky Shark, Skipjack Tuna, Smooth Dogfish, Spinner Shark, Swordfish, Tiger Shark, Whale Shark, White Marlin, White Shark, and Yellowfin Tuna. Source datasets contained multiple records denoting EFH for one or more life stages including adult, juvenile, larvae, or egg. These separate life stages were merged together in ArcGIS to create a single feature that represented all life stage EFH for each species. Therefore this layer does not show EFH life stage information. Rather it provides information on where any EFH life stage occurs for a given species and it shows the number of species that have overlapping EFH in any given location. Due to the geometry and high number of source datasets, feature boundaries may appear irregular and there are numerous features with minute geometries which occur at the boundaries of source EFH datasets. This is a multipart dataset. After data processing and aggregation was complete, the product was reviewed by NMFS personnel to provide feedback on content and representation.
Definition Expression: N/A
Copyright Text: National Marine Fisheries Service
Northeast Regional Ocean Council