Science Projects on Local Herring Components

Description

The development of several abundance indices is essential for improving scientific assessments of the annual fall herring biomass and related science advice for Fisheries Management. This research aims to improve the scientific knowledge of fall subpopulations of herring in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence and their relation to the entire herring stock in the Gulf. Enhanced assessment and predictive capacity will benefit the long-term sustainability of the fishery, which is economically important to several communities of the southern Gulf.

The three goals of this project are to:

• gather data on age classes, and shifts in size-at-maturity and catchability by sampling fish once or twice a week in five locations using gillnets of various mesh sizes;
• estimate the relative size of herring schools in local fall herring subpopulations based on biological information gathered during the fishing season using automated acoustic recording equipment on fishing vessels; and
• investigate whether these data can be used to develop indices of herring abundance and biomass at local scales (e.g. spawning grounds) for use by Fisheries Management for stock assessment purposes.

Program Name

Fisheries Science Collaborative Program (FSCP)

Year(s)

2012 - 2015

Ecoregion(s)

Atlantic: Gulf of St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence Estuary

Principal Investigator(s)

Claude LeBlanc
Fisheries and Oceans Canada