Greenland Halibut Commercial Catches in the St. Lawrence 1987-Present

Over 30 years of biological data on Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) from commercial fisheries in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence. The dataset includes metadata, sample weight, fish length, sex, and the number of specimens measured, collected by DFO staff at wharves or at sea. It provides a large spatio-temporal coverage for assessing the demography and structure of exploited populations.

Use Cases

• Analyze fish length distributions by sex and year to track population demographics over the 30+ year period.
• Model sample weight as a function of fish length and sex to study growth patterns in the St. Lawrence ecosystem.
• Assess population structure by examining the number of specimens measured across different fishing areas and years.

Strengths

• Data collection spans from 1987 to the present, offering a long-term time series for analysis.
• Provides multiple biological variables per record, including fish length, sex, sample weight, and specimen count.
• Collected by specialized DFO staff, ensuring a standardized methodology for biological data.

Limitations

• Confidentiality protections have simplified or excluded some information, such as precise capture dates and vessel identifiers.
• Entries with only one vessel in a fishing area for a given year were excluded, which may introduce sampling bias.
• The exact number of rows and columns is unspecified, making it difficult to assess the dataset's scale and completeness.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Quebec Region.

Collection Method

Collected at wharves or at sea by specialized DFO staff as part of the commercial catches sampling program.

Time Range

1987 to present.

Freshness

Updated to present, with a last platform update recorded in March 2026.

Geography

Estuary and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence.