Priority Ocean Areas for Protection in the Mid-Atlantic

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Individual Recommendations
Ken Able
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POLYGON KA1

Rationale: migratory corridor
Seasons and depths important for protection: April-October; pelagic and benthic

This inshore corridor, from the coast out to 35 kilometers (i.e., 18.9 nautical miles from the coast, or 15.9 miles into federal waters), is a migratory pathway for fish species of commercial and ecological importance, including bay anchovy, bluefish, striped bass, menhaden, summer flounder, shad, sturgeon, and sharks. It also serves as spawning habitat and a migratory pathway for larval transport to inshore nursery areas. Migration takes place from April through October.

Rationale: biodiversity
Seasons and depths important for protection: year-round; benthic

These small areas are between the 100-meter and 300-meter isobaths immediately adjacent to the Hudson Canyon. Funnel-shaped tilefish burrows in the clays on both flanks of Hudson Canyon (up to 3 to 4 meters across and 2 meters deep) provide habitat not only for tile-fish but also lobsters, eels, and crabs and a thermal refuge and over-wintering area for a large number of fish species, including summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.

REFERENCES

for KA1
Able, Kenneth W. 1999. Measures of Juvenile Fish Habitat Quality: Examples from a National Estuarine Research Reserve. American Fisheries Society Symposium. 22: 134–47.

Vouglitois, J.J., K.W. Able, R.J., Kurtz, and K.A. Tighe. 1987. Life History and Population Dynamics of the Bay Anchovy in New Jersey. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 116 (2): 141–53.

for KA2 and KA3
Twichell, D.C., C.B. Grimes, R.S. Jones and K.W. Able. 1985. The Role of Erosion by Fish Shaping Topography Around Hudson Submarine Canyon. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. 55 (5): 712–19.

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