Data Collection

Sustainable fishing depends on data.

That’s why Data Collection is step 1 in our Data to Decision process.

How can we know how much to fish without knowing how many fish there are…

… and to know how many fish there are – we need to collect data, lots of data!

But how do you count what you can’t see? Or a species that moves a lot, sometimes over very long distances?

We gather and use data from many possible sources.

We head to sea to monitor how stocks are doing over time, covering vast areas of ocean in a systematic way each year.

We work with fishing industries to gain insight into the fish they catch.

And we work with Indigenous communities, other governments, and nongovernmental organizations to find out even more.

We take all these pieces and put them together to gain a bigger, and better, picture of how Canada’s fish are doing.