R/EN-1

Description:

Scope of Work: Determine the overlap between critical terrapin habitat and commercial crab and eel pot fisheries by random sampling of different habitat types to determine the sex, age and size classes of terrapins and the different habitats that they use with regard to water depth, temperature and the distance and estimate the portion of population that is found in the deeper waters where eel and crab pot fishery is likely to occur. Project will be conducted in the Patuxent River where a seventeen year demographic data set of terrapin population is available. The location also supports a variety of commercial fisheries that capture terrapins and that have a profound effect of the population size.