Salmon age, sex, and length data from the Copper and Coghill Rivers, Alaska, 1965-2016

Age, sex and length data provide population dynamics information that can indicate how populations trends occur and may be changing. These data can help researchers estimate population growth rates, age-class distribution and population demographics. Knowing population demographics, growth rates and trends is particularly valuable to fisheries managers who must perform population assessments to inform management decisions. These data are therefore particularly important in valuable fisheries like the salmon fisheries of Alaska. This dataset includes age, sex and length data compiled from annual sampling of commercial and subsistence salmon harvests and research projects in the Coghill and Copper Rivers. It includes data on two salmon species: chinook and sockeye. Age estimates were made by examining scales or bony structures (e.g. otoliths - ear bones). Scales were removed from the side of the fish; usually the left side above the lateral line. Scales or bony structures were then mounted on gummed cards and pressed on acetate to make an impression. The number of freshwater and saltwater annuli (i.e. rings) was counted to estimate age in years. Age is recorded in European Notation, which is a method of recording both fresh and saltwater annuli. For example, for a fish that spent one year in freshwater and 3 years in saltwater, its age is recorded as 1.3. The total fish age is the sum of the first and second numbers, plus one to account for the time between deposition and emergence. Therefore the fish in this example is 5 years old. Fish sex was determined by either examining external morphology (eg. head and belly shape) or internal sex organ. Length was measured in millimeters, generally from mid-eye to the fork of the tail. This data package includes two csv's of ASL data: "ASL_formatted_CoghillWeir.csv" derived from an original data file "Coghill_Weir_ASL.csv" and "ASL_formatted_CopperRiverSockeye.csv" derived from an original data file "Copper_River_Chinook_Sockeye_ASL_Com_Harvest.xlsx", and the reformatting scripts "ASL_CoghillReformatting.R" and "ASL_CopperRiverSockeye.R", which draw pertinent columns from the respective original data files and combine it with information from the metadata to create the formatted csv's.