Whelk Pot Gear Trial and Size Selectivity Data from the English Channel, 2023

A 2023 gear trial from Heriot Watt University's Lyell Centre compared commercial and experimental whelk pot designs in the English Channel. All captured whelk (Buccinum undatum) were measured for total shell length using calipers. The data likely contains paired catch records from control and test pots with different escape gap designs.

Use Cases

• Modeling size selectivity curves for different pot designs based on the paired gear trial methodology.
• Comparing the retention rates of horizontal, vertical, and round escape gaps against a commercial standard pot.
• Assessing compliance and effectiveness of regional shellfish byelaws based on the gear trial results.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a controlled, paired gear trial comparing multiple pot designs.
• All catch was physically measured using calipers for total shell length, suggesting precise biological data.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for statistical modeling.

Provenance

Source

Heriot Watt University (The Lyell Centre), aggregated via the eu_open_data platform.

Collection Method

Paired size selectivity gear trial fishing control and test pots along commercial strings.

Time Range

2023

Freshness

Data is from 2023, but a specific last update date is unknown.

Geography

English Channel