Nekton from Fishery-Independent Trawl Samples in U.S. Gulf of Mexico Estuaries: A Comparative Assessment of Gulf Estuarine Systems (CAGES), 1973-2007 (NODC Accession 0115183)

The purpose of CAGES (Comparative Assessment of Gulf Estuarine Systems) is to compile the fishery independent data from five Gulf States into a database to more easily compare the fisheries across the US Gulf of Mexico coast. The CAGES database is intended for scientific research only.

The CAGES program is designed to examine the differences between estuarine ecosystems and investigate why some are more productive than others. The program focuses on estuarine areas important to commercial fisheries and includes data on commercial finfish and invertebrate species, as well as other species commonly captured in trawl sampling. The CAGES Relational Database is a compilation of fishery-independent data contributed by natural resource agencies of the Gulf States (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida). This data set includes data from trawls as well as associated hydrographic data. Trawl data were used to calculate CPUE (catch per unit effort) at each station.

These data are subdivided by state, and original data are in Microsoft Office Access (.accdb) format. Data are also provided as matching ASCII (.csv) files with standard metadata in both Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and International Standard Organization (ISO) format. An accompanying report, NOAATechnicalMemorandumNMFS-SEFSC-647.pdf, provides a study overview, methodology, and results. Data files include CPUE, hydrological, lengths, samples, species, stations, and trawls. Users are advised to review the individual metadata report for each state for specific notes on data collection, data processing details, omissions and issues.