waters less than 20 m around rocky areas, ledges, 

 mussel beds, breakwaters, and other similar 

 nearshore habitats from early May until late Oc- 

 tober (Bigelow and Schroedcr 1953; Wheatland 

 1956; Cooper 1965). Juveniles are also found in 

 eelgrass beds and among macroaigae in coves and 

 channels (Tracy 1910; Briggs and O'Conner 1971). 

 Both juveniles and adults have a home site where 

 they remain inactive and under cover at night; 

 during the day larger fish move to other locations 

 to feed, but juveniles remain close to their home 

 sites (OUa et al. 1974). During winter, adults 

 move to deeper water (about 25 to 55 m) and 

 remain inactive while juveniles stay inshore to 

 overwinter in a torpid state (Cooper 1965; Olla 

 et al. 1974). Tautog males become sexually ma- 

 ture at age 2-3 and females at age 3-4 and the 

 maximum reported age for males is 34 years and 

 females is 22 years (Chenoweth 1963; Cooper 

 1965). Spawning occurs from mid-May until 

 mid- August in LIS (Wheatland 1956; Chenoweth 

 1963). The eggs are pelagic, hatch in 42-45 hours 

 at 22°(", and are concentrated in the upper 5 m 

 of the water column (Williams 1967; Fritzsche 

 1978). Young become benthic and move inshore 

 after metamorphosis, which is completed by 10 

 mm (Fritzsche 1978). 



TABLE 19. Total number of tautog caught by trawl at 

 each station during each report period (June-May)./ 



evident at the other stations. Some of the largest 

 annual fluctuaaons have occurred at NR. Mean 

 length has remained fairly constant at all stations, 

 except at NR (Fig. 11). The decline in mean 

 length at NR was concurrent with increased abun- 

 dance, particularly evident in the 1981-82, 1982-83, 

 and 1986-87 report periods, indicating greater re- 

 cruitment of young. Similar to the Millstone 

 area, no trends were apparent in trawl CPUE at 

 SNPS (Table 20). 



The tautog was collected in all sampling pro- 

 grams, but only in high abundance as eggs from 

 May through August. Due to its habitat prefer- 

 ence, it was raiely collected in the shore-zone 

 seine program (Appendix IV). Even though 

 tautog prefer rocky shores, such as those adjacent 

 to the MNPS intakes, they were not impinged in 

 large numbers and contributed less than 2% to 

 the total impingement estimate; annual estimates 

 at Unit 2 ranged from 96 in 1986 to 731 in 1978 

 (Table 2). Annual 5-mean abundance indices 

 could not be calculated from trawl data because 

 individuals were collected infrequently. Because 

 trawl sampling effort was nearly the same each 

 year, the total catch from each station and report 

 period (June- May) was used to examine spatial 

 and temporal distributions (Table 19). Tautog 

 were caught primarily at nearshore stations (JC, 

 IN, and NR). The lowest catches at NB have 

 occurred in recent years, but this decline was not 



TABLE 20. Annual abundance indices of tautog eggs 

 and larvae, both expressed as an annual sum of means, 

 and trawl catch as annual CPUE at Shoreham Nuclear 

 Power Station. 



Sums for 1977-82 based on mean density per sam- 

 pling trip (Gcomet Tech. 1983) and for 1983-86 based 

 on monthly mean density (EA Rng., Sci., and Tech. 

 1987). 



Abundance not reported (Geomet Tech 1983) appar- 

 ently due to low densities. 



280 



