Results for the 2022 VIMS Industry Cooperative Surveys of the Mid-Atlantic Bight, Nantucket Lightship, Southern Flank, and Closed Area II Resource Areas

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) conducted high resolution sea scallop dredge surveys of the entire Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) and portions of Georges Bank (GB) including the Nantucket Lightship (NL), the Southern Flank (SF), Closed Area II (CA) Extension, and CAII during May–June 2022 (Figure 1). These surveys were funded by the Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program (RSA). Exploitable biomass for each survey is shown in Table 1 for each spatially explicit SAMS Area (Scallop Area Management Simulator). SAMS Areas represent management relevant spatial subunits of the resource and explicitly account for differences in recruitment, vital rates, and fishing effort in the forward projection of survey information. Maps of SAMS Areas are provided in Figures 2–3. At the time of the surveys, exploitable biomass estimated from the commercial dredge was 821 mt or 2 million pounds for the Elephant Truck (ET) SAMS Area. For open bottom in the Long Island (LI) SAMS Area, exploitable biomass was estimated at 5,586 mt or 12 million pounds. In the NL South Deep SAMS Area, the exploitable biomass was 1,373 mt or 3 million pounds. The exploitable biomass estimate for the CAII SW SAMS Area was 2,222 mt or 5 million pounds. The CAII SE SAMS Area estimate was 5,538 mt or 12 million pounds. (...