PETITION TO LIST The Northwest Atlantic Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of the Thorny Skate (Amblyraja radiata) as an Endangered or Threatened Species or, Alternatively, to List the United States DPS of the Thorny Skate as an Endangered Species UNDER TH

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Canada; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.366.5823; http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/petitions/thorny_skate_nw_atlantic_petition2011.pdf

(NOAA), to list, as a Distinct Population Segment (DPS), the Northwest Atlantic Population of thorny skates (Amblyraja radiata) as endangered [or threatened] throughout all or a significant portion of its range pursuant to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the alternative, AWI seeks an endangered listing for the United States DPS of the thorny skate. In addition, for the United States population, AWI seeks the designation of critical habitat as authorized by statute. The thorny skate is a “K‐selected ” species and as such is relatively long‐lived, reaches sexual maturity at a late age, and has a low fecundity. Given these life history characteristics and the species ’ limited ability to recover in response to abrupt population declines, the thorny skate is particularly vulnerable to overexploitation. Thorny skate populations throughout the northwest Atlantic have declined precipitously over the past four decades. In Canada, where the species is still fished in a directed fishery, thorny skates have suffered a dramatic population decline since the 1980s that is conspicuously parallel to the species’ decline in United States waters. Though the species is ostensibly maintaining historically low, relatively stable population numbers in Canadian waters currently, there is evidence of hyper‐aggregation at the species ’ center of biomass for the northwest Atlantic, with 80 % of the biomass now concentrated in 20%