Winter Flounder Commercial Catches in the St. Lawrence Estuary and Gulf (1992-2019)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Quebec region collected this biological data on winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus) from commercial catches to assess exploited stocks. The dataset includes metadata, sample weight, fish length, sex, and specimen counts, covering the periods of 1992 and 1997-2019. It provides spatio-temporal coverage for demographic analysis of the population.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in fish length and sex ratios over the 1992-2019 period to study population demographics.
• Model sample weight distributions segmented by year and fishing area to understand resource availability.
• Assess the structure of exploited winter flounder populations using specimen count data from commercial catches.

Strengths

• Data collected by specialized DFO staff ensures authoritative biological measurements.
• Covers a multi-decade time range from 1992 and 1997-2019 for longitudinal analysis.
• Provides spatio-temporal coverage from the Estuary and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Limitations

• Specific row and column counts are unknown, limiting precise assessment of dataset scale.
• Data confidentiality measures exclude vessel details and simplify capture dates, reducing granularity.
• Entries with only one vessel in a fishing area per year were excluded, potentially introducing sampling bias.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Quebec region.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1992, 1997-2019

Freshness

null

Geography

Estuary and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada.