The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Management Plan Review

What Are The Issues?

The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is starting its management plan review. In the first stage, they are looking to hear suggestions from you about what actions they should consider (comment letters need to be sent by October 18, 2002; see below). Information from them is available at their web site. We would like to use this as a guide to tell you about some of the key issues and solutions that we feel they should think about. We hope you will support us in these ideas, as each letter they get in will be counted!

Issue 1- Expanding the boundary to include Jeffreys Ledge

Stellwagen Bank lies off the Massachusetts coast, stretching from just south of Cape Ann to just north of Cape Cod. Northeast of Cape Ann, however, lies a similar area, called Jeffreys Ledge. It stretches all the way up to southern Maine. Like Stellwagen Bank, its contours cause a lot of upwelling and marine productivity. Unlike Stellwagen Bank, though, the primary prey of most marine predators on Jeffreys Ledge (including whales) is herring. Stellwagen Bank is an ecosystem driven by a different bait fish, called the sand lance. Both fish have fluctuating populations, and often when one population is depressed, the other is abundant. Hence, the two systems act very much as a buffer for each other. When the original Sanctuary was designated 10 years ago, the boundary lines included the southern 1/3 of Jeffreys Ledge. The rest remains unprotected. We feel that it is critical that the boundary be expanded to include the rest of the Ledge.

Key arguments:

Issue 2 - Speed of boats in the sanctuary

In the past two decades, there has been something of a revolution in the speed that boats now commonly operate at. When we started our efforts out here, in 1980, it was rare to se a boat travel at more than 15 knots (about 17 miles per hour). Now, boats traverse the area at over 40 knots (45 miles per hour) at times. Since boat speeds have gone up, collisions with whales and other marine mammals have increased as well. Collisions have taken place between high speed whale watch boats and whales, large tankers and whales, and small boats and whales. Decreasing the speed of boats in the vicinity of whales allows the whale more time to get out of the way of a boat, and for a boat operator to avoid a whale. In 1999, new whale watch guidelines suggested slowing down within two miles of whales to no more than 13 knots; however, few whale watch boats actually do this, and it does not apply to any boats that are not whale watching.

We feel that there should be speed restrictions around whales in the sanctuary. If they are truly going to be doing a good job of protecting endangered species, there should be some restrictions on boats operating in their vicinity. When the sanctuary was designated, a large buffer zone around the Bank itself was included for ecosystem protection, and speed restrictions may only be needed for those areas that marine mammals use, rather than the entire sanctuary.

Key arguments:

Issue 3 - Protecting the sea floor

Stellwagen Bank is an area traditionally used for fishing. One of the most common types of fishing is trawling, where nets are dragged across the sea floor. This fishery is used to catch cod, haddock, flounder, and other ground fish. Recently, a number of scientists have started to question what effect this constant sea floor disturbance might have on the marine life of the area. For the past several years, fishery managers have closed a portion of Jeffreys Ledge and Stellwagen Bank to all commercial fishing, in an area called 'the Western Gulf of Maine' closure. Soon, however, this area may be re-opened to fishermen.

Data collected in the past several years has indicated that while this closure has been in place, there has been a large, diverse community of animals and plants that have developed along the ocean bottom. If this area is re-opened, we will lose both this diversity and the start of a great natural experiment to determine how much habitat impact fisheries may have. We suggest that the sanctuary act to keep the part of the closure that is within the sanctuary closed.

Key issues:

1) The sanctuary needs to have control over the effects of human use on the sea floor, not just the fishery managers;
2) The Western Gulf of Maine closure has started an important study on what can live in undisturbed bottom habitat;
3) The sanctuary should continue to survey the bottom in both fished and protected non-fished areas to see what the impacts of trawl fishing on marine life are.

How You Can Help

There are many other issues that we will be addressing in our organizational comments, but these three are among the most important.

Please make your feelings known. Comment letters need to be sent by October 18, 2002, to:

Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
175 Edward Foster Road
Scituate, MA 02066

or they can be e-mailed directly to sbnmsplan@noaa.gov.

Thank you. Your letter will make a difference!