AFSC/RACE/GAP/McConnaughey: Trawlex Chronic Effects-1996-Other

The eastern Bering Sea has experienced rapid and intensive development of commercial trawl fisheries. Because of good record keeping and the relatively brief history of fishing it is possible to reconstruct the spatial and temporal patterns of exploitation. Previously unfished (UF) areas can be identified and directly compared with heavily fished (HF) areas to investigate long-term consequences for the benthos. Using this approach, macrofauna populations in a shallow (48 m average) soft-bottom area were studied during 1996. Catch data were extracted from the AFSC NORPAC database for years 1973-2001 to provide a summary of trawl catch effort, specific focus was placed on the area within Fisheries Management Area 512. Data were merged with a 1nm grid that covered fisheries management area 512. The total number of hauls were summed for all points falling within each 1nm cell.