Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Condition Summary Table
2020 Condition Report

The following table summarizes the various resource status and trend evaluations presented in this report. Three rows are dedicated to each of the 16 questions. The first row states the question used to rate the condition and trends for drivers and qualities of human activities, water, habitat, living resources, and maritime heritage resources. The second row presents a set of rating symbols that display key information. The first symbol includes a color and term to indicate status, the next symbol indicates trend, and a shaded scale adjacent to both symbols indicates confidence (see key for example and definitions). This row also includes the relevant status description, which is a statement that best characterizes resource status and corresponds to the assigned color rating and definition as described in Appendix A. The status description statements are customized for all possible ratings for each question. The third row presents the rationale, a short statement or list of criteria used to justify the rating.

Key:

Drivers/Pressures

Question 1: What are the states of influential human drivers and how are they changing?

Status Description: Selected drivers are influencing pressures in ways that result in severe impacts that are either widespread or persistent.

Rationale: Increasing demand at multiple scales for food, ocean transportation, and recreation, influenced heavily by population growth and increasing income, enhances commercial and recreational activities with adverse impacts that include habitat damage, entanglement, ship strikes, noise, and contaminant discharges.

Question 2: What are the levels of human activities that may adversely influence water quality and how are they changing?

Status Description: Some potentially harmful activities exist, but they have not been shown to degrade water quality.

Rationale: Several human activities have the potential to adversely influence water quality, but generally do not seem to be doing so. Potential activities of concern include the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) outfall and other effluent discharges, vessel discharges, ballast water discharges, disposal of dredged material, resuspension of sediments from bottom-contact fishing gear, and airborne industrial discharges.

Question 3: What are the levels of human activities that may adversely influence habitats and how are they changing?

Status Description: Selected activities have caused measurable resource impacts, but effects are localized and not widespread or persistent.

Rationale: Some activities, such as the use of mobile gear and anthropogenic noise, are of particular concern, as they can alter structural characteristics of habitat. Other activities that occur, but result in more localized habitat disturbance, include the dumping of dredged material adjacent to the sanctuary and submarine cable installation.

The status rating for this question was changed from “undetermined” to “fair.” The expert workshop participants recommended an undetermined rating primarily due to the lack of vessel monitoring system (VMS) data. Staff have subsequently acquired and analyzed VMS data. The data show that these impacts, in combination with other impacts such as noise and vertical lines from trap fishing, warrant the rating of “fair” for the status of sanctuary habitats, which include the seafloor and water column.

Question 4: What are the levels of human activities that may adversely influence living resources and how are they changing?

Status Description: Selected activities have caused severe impacts that are either widespread or persistent.

Rationale: Fixed and mobile commercial fishing methods, shipping, and recreational activities such as fishing and whale watching are of particular concern, as they can cause negative impacts on living resources. Improvements in gear management and decreases in overall fishing effort have resulted in reduced impacts on living resources, ship strikes of whales have decreased, and efforts are underway to mitigate noise impacts on marine mammals.

Question 5: What are the levels of human activities that may adversely affect maritime heritage resources and how are they changing?

Status Description: Selected activities have caused severe, persistent, and widespread impacts.

Rationale: Incidental contact from fishing gear has affected nearly every maritime heritage resource in the sanctuary and continues to negatively impact archaeological site conditions. Recreational diving has also caused some local impacts but is not considered to be causing widespread degradation of maritime archaeological sites.

Water Quality

Question 6: What is the eutrophic condition of sanctuary waters and how is it changing?

Status Description: Eutrophication has not been documented, or does not appear to have the potential to negatively affect ecological integrity

Rationale: MWRA hydrographic modelling (Zhao et al. 2017a) suggests that eutrophication is not occurring. Dissolved oxygen has not approached hypoxic or anoxic conditions over time. Background nitrogen may be decreasing regionally, which would decrease the probability of eutrophication.

Question 7: What is the eutrophic condition of sanctuary waters and how is it changing?

Status Description: One or more water quality indicators suggest the potential for human health impacts, but human health impacts have not been reported.

Rationale: Toxigenic algae are present but not observed to cause demonstrable threats to human health. Observed water quality changes over the last 12 years may be related to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Question 8: Have recent changes in climate altered water conditions and how are they changing?

Status Description: Climate-related changes have caused measurable, but not severe, degradation in some attributes of ecological integrity.

Rationale: Climate change is influencing the primary production cycle in the region, and has the demonstrated capacity to produce cascading effects within the ecosystem. Additional changes in water temperature, dissolved oxygen, stratification, sea level, precipitation, and storm activity have been documented or modeled, with some suggestion of changes in pH, though more monitoring is needed to more robustly identify acidification trends and effects.

Question 9: Are other stressors, individually or in combination, affecting water quality, and how are they changing?

Status Description: Undetermined

Rationale: Ongoing contaminant monitoring has focused on a handful of legacy contaminants, leaving the majority of emerging organic contaminants unmeasured. No data exists to determine changes over time, which is the primary factor driving the rating and trend. More monitoring is needed in this area.

Habitat Resources

Question 10: What is the integrity of major habitat types and how is it changing?

Status Description: Selected habitat loss or alteration has caused measurable but not severe degradation in some attributes of ecological integrity.

Rationale: Data suggest measurable changes in habitat quality, likely due to the use of bottom-contact commercial fishing gear. Some habitat attributes show degradation, while others show improvement. Significant habitat degradation is observed in isolated areas due to chronic disturbance. Use of bottom-contact gear is intensive in SBNMS, but diminishing due to regulatory controls and fleet consolidation. An increase in scallop dredging started in 2017 and will continue. Seabed disturbance from anchoring and other activities might also be locally important and should be evaluated.

Question 11: What are contaminant concentrations in sanctuary habitats and how are they changing?

Status Description: Undetermined

Rationale: Legacy contaminants have been reported in benthic habitats. However, they infrequently exceed thresholds of concern, do not appear to remobilize beyond sites where they have been identified (e.g., MBDS), and no indications of acute life history or population effects have been observed. Compounds of emerging concern are present, but poorly documented or monitored; thus, their status and trends could not be assessed. More monitoring is needed in this area.

Living Resources

Question 12: What is the status of keystone and foundation species and how is it changing?

Status Description: The status of keystone or foundation species may preclude full community development and function, but has not yet led to measurable degradation.

Rationale: Foundation species considered include Calanoid copepods, Atlantic herring, sand lance, sponges, and anemones. Calanoid copepods have persisted in the western Gulf of Maine despite recent warming. Atlantic herring have recovered from overfishing, but poor recruitment may result in a future decline in biomass. Sand lance are tightly linked to isolated shallow sand habitat on top of Stellwagen Bank and exhibit variable, unpredictable local abundance. The status of sponges and anemones is uncertain.

Question 13: What is the status of other focal species and how is it changing?

Status Description: Selected key species are at reduced levels, but recovery is possible.

Rationale: The eight focal species considered include North Atlantic right whale (poor and worsening), humpback whale (poor and improving), harbor porpoises (fair and undetermined), Atlantic white-sided dolphins (good and undetermined), great shearwaters (good/fair and undetermined), Atlantic cod (fair/poor and worsening), lobster (good and improving), and bluefin tuna (undetermined and improving). The overall rating is driven by the precarious status of North Atlantic right whales, whose recovery is dependent on additional management intervention, and humpback whales, which have been experiencing an unusual mortality event since 2017.

Question 14: What is the status of non-indigenous species and how is it changing?

Status Description: Non-indigenous species are present and may preclude full community development and function, but have not yet caused measurable degradation

Rationale: Invasive species exist in the sanctuary and have for many decades; however, their abundance and distribution are poorly documented. The invasive tunicate, Didemnum vexillum has been found in isolated, small areas dominated by hard bottom habitats.

Question 15: What is the status of biodiversity and how is it changing?

Status Description: Selected biodiversity loss or change is suspected and may preclude full community development and function, but has not yet caused measurable degradation.

Rationale: Changes in sanctuary biodiversity are likely driven by variability in multiple factors at local and regional scales. At a local scale, fishing activities focused on species with high residency may impact biodiversity. Regional-scale factors include fishing of highly mobile species and climate change. The resulting shifts in species interactions at both spatial scales may also influence biodiversity in SBNMS.

Maritime Heritage Resources

Question 16: What is the condition of known maritime heritage resources and how is it changing?

Status Description: The diminished condition of selected maritime heritage resources has reduced, to some extent, their aesthetic, cultural, historical, archaeological, scientific, or educational value, and may affect the eligibility of some sites for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Rationale: Shipwreck sites are known to experience damage from mobile and fixed fishing gear, as these sites create structure on the seabed that can attract commercially important fish species, and thus fishing effort. Damage to shipwreck sites from fishing gear has been documented. Shipwreck sites are also visited by scuba divers. Scuba diving in the sanctuary has increased since 2007, but seems to be well-managed by dive operators to avoid site disturbance.

Ecosystem Services Summary Table

The following summarizes the various ecosystem service status and trend evaluations presented in this report. Three rows are dedicated to each of the seven ecosystem services. The first row states the ecosystem service. The second row presents a set of rating symbols that display key information. The first symbol includes a color and term to indicate status, the next symbol indicates trend, and a shaded scale adjacent to both symbols indicates confidence (see key for example and definitions). This row also includes the relevant status description, which is a statement that best characterizes resource status and corresponds to the assigned color rating and definition as described in Appendix B. The third row presents the rationale, a short statement or list of criteria used to justify the rating.

Cultural (Non-Material Benefit)

Heritage

Status Description: Unable to fully provide the ecosystem service due to prior or existing human activity, but performance is acceptable.

Rationale: Indicators show that historic SBNMS shipwreck stories are told in newspapers, magazines, and museums in New England. The dissemination of historic shipwreck information and stories indicates there is economic value for this resource. The resource indicators show that in-water shipwreck resources are fair and worsening.

Consumptive Recreation

Status Description: Ability to provide ecosystem service is compromised, and existing management would require enhancement to enable acceptable performance.

Rationale: The number of charter and party boat anglers declined from 2007–2016, while the number of private boat registrations remained stable from 2007–2015 and increased in 2016. Local communities are also highly engaged in recreational fishing. The resource indicator for the most sought after stock (Atlantic cod) is poor, but alternative stocks (haddock, pollock, etc.) are sustainably managed and responsibly harvested.

Non-Consumptive Recreation

Status Description: Unable to fully provide the ecosystem service due to prior or existing human activity, but performance is acceptable.

Rationale: Some commercial operations have noted that demand for whale watching has steadily increased and the number of reports mentioning bird sightings has been increasing. Income and population in the area have also been increasing, and stable fuel prices have led to increased non-consumptive recreational activity in the sanctuary. The resource indicators show that there is a decline in some of the focal and foundation species used for non-consumptive recreation.

Sense of Place

Status Description: Ability to provide ecosystem service is compromised, and existing management would require enhancement to enable acceptable performance.

Rationale: Studies show a positive willingness to pay for marine protected areas. Opinion polls show that over the past several years, the percentage of people that prioritize environmental protection at the risk of economic growth is increasing. The resource indicators show variation in their rankings.

Science

Status Description: The capacity to provide the ecosystem service has been enhanced or remained unaffected.

Rationale: The number of research hours and days on the R/V Auk, citizen science hours, and the number of volunteers have been increasing. Further, SBNMS is at the forefront of research focused on anthropogenic noise, humpback whales, and fin whales.

Education

Status Description: The capacity to provide the ecosystem service has been enhanced or remained unaffected.

Rationale: Studies show that parents have a willingness to pay for hands-on ocean conservation and stewardship programs. The number of Twitter and Facebook followers of SBNMS has increased over the past few years. Education activities at SBNMS have contributed to the public’s understanding of SBNMS resources and programs.

Provisioning

Food Supply

Status Description: Ability to provide ecosystem service is compromised, and existing management would require enhancement to enable acceptable performance.

Rationale: Pounds caught and value of landings show variability over the study period. Data indicate a shift from smaller to larger commercial vessels operating in the sanctuary. The groundfish fishery is still recovering, while lobster and sea scallop fisheries have been increasing.