This report outlines the results of a project that created a series of maps tracking inshore historical Lobster fishing district boundaries from 1899 to present. This work has been part of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) Blue Economy Lobster Team (BELT) pilot project on the Lobster fishery. To provide the context for the use of historical information within fisheries research, this report provides a brief summation of the discipline of history, its purpose, and its methods. It also describes the different ways that historical data has been used to support the analysis of fisheries, and some of the ways that historians have integrated the techniques of natural and social sciences into their own work. It provides an overview of how the BELT has incorporated historical methods and methodologies into the team’s overall work. The report presents two sets of maps that outline geographical changes in Lobster fishing districts (called Lobster Fishing Areas after 1985) as well as changes in minimum legal size (MLS) and season length information. These maps help to inform a larger understanding of the historical Lobster fishery in the present-day Maritimes Region, and highlight several themes within the fishery. This includes the increasingly intensive regulation of the fishery over time, the inshore nature of the Lobster fishery for the majority of the twentieth century, the variability in the boundaries of Lobster districts over time, and the broad transition from a cannery-based market to a live Lobster market. The maps taken as a whole help to demonstrate consistency of the regulatory approach to Lobster over the twentieth century. However, there are limitations to the interpretive capacity of these maps, as more work should be done to investigate the specific reasoning behind why each change occurred. **Note: The outer boundaries depicted from 1899-1974 are not meant to represent areas where DFO or its predecessor departments had complete or authoritative control of the inshore fishery. In past regulations, districts were described as “on and along the coast.” The outer boundaries assigned to maps prior to 1985 were chosen to make the maps easy to understand relative to current lobster fishing areas.

This collection of eelgrass data has been collated to produce a national map of the location and distribution of eelgrass beds across Canada. The data providers collaborating in this initiative include Federal, Provincial and Municipal government departments and agencies, academia, non-governmental organizations, community groups, private sector, Indigenous groups and independent science organizations. The National Eelgrass Task Force (NETForce) is a collaborative, diverse and inclusive partnership of scientists, managers, and stakeholders working towards a concrete vision which is to create a national map of eelgrass distribution in Canada that is publicly accessible, dynamic, and useful for monitoring and collective decision-making. The eelgrass data were collected using various mapping techniques including species distribution models, benthic sonar, field measurements of habitat presence or absence, video transects, aerial photography, field validation, literature review, satellite imageries, LiDAR, Airborne spectrographic imaging, and Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The metadata provided by the partners relevant for their own projects and the field names were made similar for the compiled dataset. We also created additional fields that differentiated the datasets, and these include data provider, institution code, water body, mapping techniques, province, biogeographic region, eelgrass observation... Other fields are included depending on the original metadata provided by the data provider (i.e. eelgrass percentage cover, eelgrass density, map reference, image classification technique). The data span from 1987 to present, with some eelgrass beds being surveyed only once while others were sampled across several years. Uncertainty information associated with a dataset is included in the metadata when available. This map is intended to be evergreen and more eelgrass data will be added when available. This compiled dataset has been collected by many organizations for different purposes, using different survey techniques and different methodologies and, therefore, considerable care must be taken when using these data. For further information concerning specific datasets contact the data provider/institution and/or see the associated technical report (if available) included in the Report folder under the ‘Data and Resources’ section. This group of eelgrass data has been divided using the geographic boundaries of the Federal Marine Bioregions (https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/23eb8b56-dac8-4efc-be7c-b8fa11ba62e9). The title of each geodatabase (FGDB/GDB) contains the name of the bioregion. The Data Dictionary guide provides the fields description (English and French) from each layer included in the geodatabases. For additional information please see: Gomez C., Guijarro-Sabaniel J., Wong M. 2021. National Eelgrass Task (NET) Force: engagement in support of a dynamic map of eelgrass distribution in Canada to support monitoring, research and decision making. Can. Tech. Rep. Aquat. Sci. 3437: vi + 48 p. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/library-bibliotheque/4098218x.pdf Guijarro-Sabaniel, J., Thomson, J. A., Vercaemer, B. and Wong, M. C. 2024. National Eelgrass Task Force (NETForce): Building a dynamic, open eelgrass map for Canada. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3583: v + 31 p. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/library-bibliotheque/41223147.pdf