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NOAA’s NORTHEAST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER

NEFSC Researches sorting fish onboard NOAA research vessel. February 18, 2003 — The NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center comprises five laboratories and one field station in five states and the District of Columbia, with headquarters in Woods Hole, Mass. The Center’s pedigree as a scientific institution stretches back some 132 years to the founding of the federal fisheries service and the beginning of the nation’s serious, systematic inquiry into the lives of marine animals.

The Northeast is home to 25 species of federally protected marine animals, including endangered stocks of large whales, fish and sea turtles. The Northeast’s commercial fishing industry is the nation’s oldest and most complex, with extensive cultural — as well as economic — significance. The region’s commercially important marine fish species were heavily exploited by industrialized international fleets prior to U.S. extension of a 200-mile marine economic exclusionary zone in 1975, and many have only recently begun to improve as a result of better management. These factors often contribute to the Northeast’s reputation as a proving ground for the interplay of science, policy, and natural resource management in the public interest.

Spencer Baird, the first U.S. Fish Commissioner, was appointed in 1871 by President Grant to investigate a precipitous fish decline in nearshore New England waters. He based this and subsequent efforts out of Woods Hole, Mass., and this is generally accepted as the first step in establishing what is today’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries). Baird hired the first federal fisheries service employee (Vinal Edwards, who served from 1871 until his death in 1919 at age 79). He is also credited with attracting numerous colleagues from around the world to his lab, laying the groundwork for the gathering of institutions that would eventually make Woods Hole famous as a village of scientists.

The laboratory in Woods Hole began a program of fish propagation and baseline studies of the marine environment. The original lab campus, completed in 1885, included a large research aquarium, the forerunner of today’s Woods Hole Science Aquarium — the nation’s oldest public research aquarium. It was homeport to the nation’s first research ship built expressly for fisheries research, a sailing vessel called the Albatross. The present-day Albatross IV — the fourth in the line — is also homeported in Woods Hole, and just passed her 40th birthday.

Abralia veranyi, an Atlantic squid, photographed by NOAA Fisheries squid expert Michael Vecchione. Over its history, scientists of the NEFSC have produced seminal works in marine science and have played leading roles in developing methods to model the population dynamics of commercially important marine species, the overall productivity and biodiversity of large marine ecosystems, and the distribution of highly migratory marine fishes and mammals. Scientists here began large-scale biological surveys in nearshore waters in the early 19^th century, collecting both qualitative data and specimens. Extension and expansion of this work over the last century has resulted in one of the world’s oldest and largest biodiversity indices for a large marine ecosystem.

Research is presently organized into six broad areas: large scale monitoring of marine life and environmental conditions on the Northeastern continental shelf; population biology and dynamics for commercially and ecologically important marine species — as well as social science investigating the economics and culture of commercial fishing; aquaculture; ecosystems processes, particularly in nearshore areas where human activities are most influential; the systematics of marine fish, shellfish, and cephalopods; and large marine ecosystem definition and modeling. NEFSC researches conducting fisheries research onboard a NOAA research vessel.

NEFSC Laboratories

Connecticut: The NOAA NEFSC Milford, Conn., laboratory is a center for aquaculture. Working with fish and shellfish, scientists in the Milford laboratory develop methods suitable for commercial captive rearing and for enhancing and restoring wild stocks. This includes fish and shellfish diseases that hamper both commercial production and recovery of endangered or threatened species, such as Maine’s wild Atlantic salmon. Federally-backed aquaculture research in Milford dates to 1923 when a scientist named Herbert F. Prytherch first reported on his work with artificial propagation of oysters. The NEFSC facilities in Milford today comprise two laboratory/office buildings, support buildings housing raceway and circular tanks and a 49-foot vessel (R/V Victor Loosanoff) used for nearshore research.
Washington, D.C.: The NEFSC’s National Systematics Laboratory is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Scientists in this laboratory describe and name new species and revise existing descriptions and names of fishes, squids, crustaceans and corals of economic or ecological importance to the United States. Because some important species are highly migratory and many exotic species are introduced into U.S. waters or markets, the laboratory's research is worldwide.
New Jersey: The nation's first saltwater sport fish lab was established in 1961 in Sandy Hook, N.J. Parts of the laboratory were destroyed by an arsonist in 1985. By 1993, all of the laboratory buildings were renovated or replaced and now house exceptional capabilities for studying marine processes. The new lab is shared with other research agencies and was named for James J. Howard, a long-time New Jersey congressman. The Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory has a state-of-the-art seawater system that includes a two-story, 32,000 gallon research aquarium housed in a sound-retardant room. Daily and seasonal changes in light intensity and photoperiod can be simulated for any time of the year, and for any place in the world. Scientists in this laboratory study the effects of natural and human-induced environmental factors on fishery resources, with an emphasis on the study of reproductive activity and the early life stages that are generally the most vulnerable to environmental variation.
Rhode Island: The NEFSC’s Narragansett Laboratory was established in 1966 to study important Atlantic gamefish. The lab’s gamefish roots are apparent in a nearly 40-year-old cooperative shark tagging program that has created the world’s largest database on distribution and range of Atlantic sharks. Scientists at the Narragansett Laboratory have a reputation for incubating “big ideas” that become national and international programs. Today’s National Status and Trends Program is rooted in the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction (MARMAP) Program originated by Narragansett Lab scientists in 1974. A current international effort to identify and manage the world’s large coastal marine ecosystems began in a 1984 symposium at the Narragansett Lab.
Massachusetts: The Woods Hole Laboratory occupies the same site as the original fisheries laboratory. In addition to the center’s directorate, the lab is home to research efforts directed at improving marine resource monitoring; providing regular assessments of productivity, growth and change in important fish and shellfish populations; understanding the social and economic dynamics of marine resource management; the biology and ecology of marine mammals in the region; and understanding the interrelationships among marine populations. Other large-scale programs administered at Woods Hole include those for defining and managing large marine ecosystems, the region’s fishery observer program (which collects scientific data aboard commercial fishing vessels) and a resource sharing program with selected universities — the Cooperative Marine Education and Research Program. Just more than 10 years old, the CMER program encourages development of marine science expertise at all levels of higher education by supporting student and faculty research projects of mutual interest.
Maine: The NEFSC also supports a field station in Orono, Maine, that deals exclusively with cooperative efforts to restore endangered wild Atlantic salmon to rivers and streams in Maine from the lower Kennebec River north to the U.S.-Canada border. These include the Dennys, East Machias, Machias, Pleasant, Narraguagus, Ducktrap, Sheepscot Rivers and Cove Brook.

Marine waters off the northeastern United States are some of the world’s best studied and best known. As marine research becomes more interdisciplinary, the understanding of the ocean and how best to manage its use will take its next steps forward. These waters are ripe for such new approaches, due largely to the wealth of long time-series data on which to base broad, interdisciplinary work. An excellent example is recent work to model natural variability on Georges Bank, which is combining wide expertise and large datasets to understand the basic mechanisms of a defined marine ecosystem. In the tradition of its forerunners, the NEFSC expects to be in the forefront of new discovery, owing to the unusual concentration of information and expertise it maintains.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center

NOAA Fisheries Historical Information

Spencer Baird

National Marine Fisheries Service

Vinal Edwards

NOAA Ship Albatross IV

Large Marine Ecosystems

Highly Migratory Marine Fishes

Marine Mammals

NOAA's Fisheries and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division

NOAA's Resource Evaluation and Assessment Division

NOAA's Aquaculture and Enhancement Division