DFO Pacific Groundfish Synoptic Trawl Surveys (OBIS Canada)

The DFO Pacific groundfish synoptic trawl surveys began in 2003 and are planned to continue indefinitely. Four study areas are defined within the spatial extents outlined here: west coast Vancouver Island (WCVI), Queen Charlotte Sound (QCS), Hecate Strait (HS) and west coast Haida Gwaii (WCHG). These areas together provide comprehensive coverage of the continental shelf and upper slope of the British Columbia coast.

After the initial start up years, these surveys were conducted on a rotating biennial schedule with the Queen Charlotte Sound and Hecate Strait surveys conducted in odd-numbered years and the west coast Vancouver Island and west coast Haida Gwaii surveys conducted in even-numbered years.

Each study area is stratified by depth and divided into a contiguous grid of 4 km2 blocks and from these blocks we randomly select a set of fishing locations allocated by depth strata.

Catches of fish and invertebrates are completely sorted, weighed and identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible.

This dataset is the OBIS version of the stock assessment survey. These data are for display on the OBIS portal and associated mapping programs and for download for end-user analysis.

OBIS Schema concepts implemented in this data set are: RES_NAME, DATELASTMODIFIED, INSTITUTIONCODE, COLLECTIONCODE, SCIENTIFICNAME, CATALOGNUMBER, LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, BASISOFRECORD, KINGDOM, GENUS, SPECIES, YEARCOLLECTED, MONTHCOLLECTED, DAYCOLLECTED, TIMEOFDAY, TIMEZONE, MINIMUMDEPTH, MAXIMUMDEPTH, OBSERVEDINDIVIDUALCOUNT, PHYLUM, CLASSNAME, ORDERNAME, FAMILY, SUBGENUS, SUBSPECIES, SCIENTIFICNAMEAUTHOR, FIELDNUMBER, STARTYEARCOLLECTED, ENDYEARCOLLECTED, STARTMONTHCOLLECTED, ENDMONTHCOLLECTED, STARTDAYCOLLECTED, ENDDAYCOLLECTED, JULIANDAY, STARTJULIANDAY, ENDJULIANDAY, OBSERVEDWEIGHT, NOTES (TSN: value).