Abstract
The Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF) and collaborators have completed the 24 months of the South Fork Wind Farm (SFWF) pre-development fisheries monitoring beam trawl survey. The survey was conducted once per month within the South Fork Wind Farm development area as well as nearby reference areas. The survey gear consisted of a 3-m beam trawl outfitted with a 2.4 cm knotless nylon liner. For the first 20 months of the survey, three twenty-minute tows each in the SFWF development area, a Western reference area, and an Eastern reference area, for total of nine tows per month, were sampled. However, due to differences in catch among areas, particularly for the Eastern area, and a lack of scallops caught in the SFWF area, the sampling design changed in the 21st month of the predevelopment survey. The updated design included an expansion of the impact sampling area within the SFWF area and sampling five twenty-minute tows each in the SFWF development area and the Western reference area, for a total of ten tows per month. For all tows, the entire catch was enumerated and weighed, and length/width measurements were taken of individual fish and selected invertebrate species. Stomach samples were collected from select commercially valuable fish species for prey composition analysis. Oceanographic conditions including salinity, water temperature, and weather conditions were recorded each haul. Preliminary results from the 24 months of sampling showed the Eastern reference area was muddy and dominated by crabs, skate, squid, and hake. The Western reference area was rocky with many small invertebrates and high catches of scallop and skate. The SFWF development area was predominantly skate, crabs, scallops, scup, and miscellaneous invertebrates. Importantly, the SFWF area often had low catches of scallops prior to the expansion of the survey area in the 21st month of the survey.