Great Lakes Commercial Fishing Catch 1929-2014

Since 1971 the Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), formerly known as the National Fishery Center-Great Lakes (National Biological Service), the Great Lakes Fishery Laboratory (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)(FWS/GLFL), and the Ann Arbor Biological Laboratory (Bureau of Commercial Fisheries), have acted as repositories for the processing, reporting, and storage of U.S. Great Lakes commercial fishery statistics. The GLSC prepares annual summaries of these data for use by federal and state resource managers and other interested public and private organizations. The data collection system was organized in 1926 by Dr. John Van Oosten of the Bureau of Fisheries and was first put to use by the State of Michigan in 1927. Commercial fishermen licensed by that state were required to submit daily fishing reports indicating gear used and amount of catch. In succeeding years the system was improved and expanded until by 1950 all the Great Lakes states and the Province of Ontario, Canada, had similar systems.