Fisheries Impacts on North Atlantic Ecosystems: Catch, Effort and National/Regional Data Sets
Observation and Inspection Data: Determining catch and bycatch by foreign fisheries on the Grand Bank outside the Canadian EEZ
Dave Preikshot
Fisheries Centre, University of British ColumbiaAbstract
The purpose of this project was to assess if the 'Foreign Fisheries Information Service/Canadian Fisheries Information Network' (FFIS/CFIN) databases on foreign fishing vessels in Northwest Atlantic waters, maintained by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), could yield information that might permit the creation of an index of fish extractions from areas outside of the Canadian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around the Grand Bank. To facilitate this work, staff from DFO (St. John's, Newfoundland) provided consulting services on the history of the fisheries, the purpose and contents of the databases, and the actual exploration of the data itself. FFIS and CFIN are now an integrated database that links information collected by various observation platforms, including the Canadian Coast Guard and DFO Patrols, with Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) and Canadian inspections of fishing vessels off Canada's coast. The database contains a large number of variables, not all of which are reported on at all times. The data sets that have been collected for the Sea Around Us project are described here. In addition, a method is suggested for linking and integrating the datasets, to allow the building of a new dataset of actual extractions by foreign fishing vessels outside of Canada's territorial waters. This report represents only a preliminary investigation of the use of observation and inspection data.