Abstract
The Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF), the University of Rhode Island and local fishermen have completed the first year of the South Fork Wind Farm pre-development fisheries monitoring ventless trap survey. The survey is designed to collect data on the abundance, distribution and movement of American lobster and Jonah crab. The South Fork Wind Farm development and two nearby reference control areas were sampled twice a month from May-November 2021. Each area had ten stations consisting of ten traps with a target soak time of 5 days between samples. The traps at each station consisted of 6 ventless (V) traps and 4 standard (S) traps in the configuration: V-S-V-S-V-V-S-V-S-V. At each station, the entire catch was speciated and counted at the trap level, then sampled for size and sex. Additional data on water temperature and habitat was also collected. The catch in the survey changed throughout the seven-month sampling period with rock crab peak abundance in the first two months of the survey, followed by lobster peak abundance in the summer months, and finally Jonah crab peak abundance in the last two months of the survey. Overall, the eastern control area had the highest abundance of lobster, Jonah crab and rock crab, with decreased and more comparable abundance for all three species in the western control area and South Fork area.