Habitat and Communities: Area Closures
The link below allows you to access Google Earth® zipped keyhole markup (*.kmz) files to view coordinates and lines describing various groundfish area closures. You must have Google Earth® installed on your computer. If you don’t have it installed, you may download a copy of the software from Google’s website to install on your computer. Boundaries and coordinates for the trawl and non-trawl Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs), the Cowcod Conservation Area (CCA) in the Southern California Bight, and Essential Fish Habitat conservation areas may be viewed. These areas were mapped using waypoints published by NMFS (see NMFS Groundfish Closed Areas webpage) and associated boundary schedules. Depictions of these area closures may be revised from time to time based on regulation changes described in NMFS notices.
- Download kmz files available on the Council’s FTP Site)
Note: Please install Google Earth first to view these files. You may then either save one or more files to your local drive and then open them with Google Earth® or launch a particular file of interest. Only features associated with opened files are displayed (likely found in your Temporary Places folder). Check/uncheck folders to change which features to view.
You may also be interested in the U.S. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) interactive mapping tool.
For further information regarding the above maps and Google Earth files, please contact Dr. Kit Dahl, at 503-820-2280 ext. 422; or toll free 1-866-806-7204.
