Mobile gear sentinel fisheries program - northern Gulf of St. Lawrence
In place since fall 1994, the sentinel fisheries program is the result of a collaboration between Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and Quebec and Newfoundland commercial fishermen's associations. Under this program, contracts are awarded by tender to fishermen’s associations to carry out fishing activities according to scientific protocols developed by DFO. The main objective of this survey is to collect data that will be used to calculate abundance indices for various fish stocks, including cod, Greenland halibut, Atlantic halibut and rockfish.
Description of mobile survey
The mobile gear sentinel fisheries of the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence are conducted in the sub-division 3Pn and the divisions 4R, 4S and the northern part of the division 4T of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO). This program follows a stratified random survey plan according to depth strata, NAFO divisions and the type of substrate at the bottom. A standard tow is 30 minutes long and made at a speed of 2.5 knots. The fishing gear is a 300 Star Balloon trawl mounted on a Rock Hopper footgear. The trawl mesh size is 145 mm with a liner of 40 mm in the codend. Unless conditions at sea compromise safety during fishing activity, a retaining cable must be used to standardize the horizontal opening between vessels and the various depths fished. Data are collected by observers at sea or by technicians.
The data contained in this program are divided into 4 different projects.
-The summer series, carried out during the month of July
-The fall series, which covers the period from 1995 to 2002
-The winter series, to study the mixing between the different stocks
-The CRP (Cod reproductive potential) series, which targets the reproductive potential.
Data
For each trait, the total catch is sorted and weighed for each species. The number of individuals caught for each unmeasured fish species is noted. Biological data such as length, weight (sampled, per individual, gonad, liver and stomach), age, sex and maturity migth then be collected on a subsample of many species such as Atlantic halibut, Greenland halibut, lumpfish and Atlantic cod, using a variety of protocols.
The biological data are divided into 4 files: a “Metadata” file containing set information, a “Catches” file containing catches per set for fish taxa, a “Carbio” file containing biological and morphometric measurements per individual, a “Freql” file containing the length frequency of fish.
The data collected as part of this program is available below. It is important to note, however, that 1) only traits deemed successful have been retained; 2) historical data may contain inaccuracies; 3) the most recent survey is not available for validation purposes.
Simple
- Date ( RI_367 )
- 2019
- Date ( RI_366 )
- 2019
- Date ( RI_368 )
- 2025
- Status
- onGoing; enContinue RI_596
- Maintenance and update frequency
- asNeeded; auBesoin RI_540
- Keywords ( RI_525 )
-
- Gulf of St. Lawrence
- Keywords ( RI_530 )
-
- Sentinel fisheries
- Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )
-
- Marine biology
- Aquatic wildlife
- Aquatic ecosystems
- Oceans
- Fish
- Fisheries management
- Classification
- unclassified; nonClassifié RI_484
- Use limitation
- Open Government Licence - Canada (http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada)
- Access constraints
- license; licence RI_606
- Use constraints
- license; licence RI_606
- Spatial representation type
- vector; vecteur RI_635
- Metadata language
- eng
- Metadata language
- fra
- Character set
- utf8; utf8 RI_458
- Topic category
-
- Biota
- Begin date
- 1994
))
- Reference system identifier
- https://epsg.io/ / EPSG:4326 /
- Distribution format
-
-
CSV
(
unknown
)
-
CSV
(
unknown
)
- OnLine resource
-
Data dictionary
(
HTTPS
)
Supporting Document;CSV;eng,fra
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile Gear Map Data
(
ESRI REST: Map Service
)
Web Service;ESRI REST;fra
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile Gear Map data
(
ESRI REST: Map Service
)
Web Service;ESRI REST;eng
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel automnal fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;eng
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel automnal fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;fra
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel CRP fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;eng
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel CRP fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;fra
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel hivernal fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;eng
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel hivernal fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;fra
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel estival fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;eng
- OnLine resource
-
Mobile gear sentinel estival fisheries data
(
HTTPS
)
Dataset;ZIP;fra
- OnLine resource
-
Sentinel Fisheries - Reports
(
HTTP
)
Supporting Document;PDF;eng,fra
- File identifier
- 929fe07f-ab8e-4b3c-8ee3-1aa7a9ea0b1a XML
- Metadata language
- eng; CAN
- Character set
- utf8; utf8 RI_458
- Hierarchy level
- dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622
- Date stamp
- 2025-05-28T14:03:36.925Z
- Metadata standard name
- North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata
- Metadata standard version
- CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009
Overviews

Spatial extent
))
Provided by
