Advancing Model-Based Essential Fish Habitat Descriptions for North Pacific Species in the Gulf of Alaska

Essential fish habitat is defined as those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity (50 CFR 600.10). EFH regulations require that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and Fishery Management Councils (Councils) describe and identify EFH for managed species and minimize to the extent practicable the adverse effects of anthropogenic activities (e.g., fishing, mineral and oil extraction, coastal development). As part of this requirement, EFH text descriptions and maps (EFH component 1, descriptions and identification) are necessary for each life stage of species in an FMP (50 CFR 600.815(a)(1)) with an overarching consideration that the science related to this effort meets the standards of best available science (NMFS National Standard 2 – Scientific Information 50 CFR 600.315).

Councils and NMFS must also periodically review the EFH components of FMPs and revise or amend these components with new information at least every 5 years (50 CFR 600.815(a)(10)). In the 2017 EFH 5-year Review, habitat-based SDMs incorporating Level 1 and 2 EFH information were developed for 36 FMP species and their life stages in the GOA (Rooney et al. 2018). That project, along with related projects in the Aleutian Islands (AI) (Turner et al. 2017) and eastern Bering Sea (EBS) (Laman et al. 2017), replaced qualitative EFH Level 1 maps based on adult distributions (Fisheries Leadership and Sustainability Forum 2016; Simpson et al. 2017) with SDM-based estimates for individual life stages, substantially refining Alaska groundfish and crab EFH designation and, in many cases, producing EFH Level 2 information for the first time. The EFH descriptions and m