Marine Atlas

Commercial Fishery Data & Maps

Commercial Catch Data
Catch data (landings) from commercial shellfish fisheries obtained from DFO are reported by fisheries management area and subarea. For catch reporting, the Haida Gwaii/QCI area includes Areas 1, 2 (2E & 2W), 101, 102, 130 and 142. Each area is composed of varying numbers of subareas. Data can be reported for any individual subarea or area where more than 3 boats fished within that reporting area and time period. If there are less than 3 boats fishing within any given reporting area and period, the catch data is withheld due to DFO confidentiality guidelines. Additional data points for some fisheries were also obtained from DFO Pacific Stock Assessment Review Committee (PSARC) reports.

Commercial Supply Maps
The commercial fishery supply maps by DFO management subarea were produced using DFO catch data summaries, in addition to PSARC report data for some fisheries. It is important to note that these subarea boundaries do NOT correspond to actual fishing locations associated with each fishery, which are more localized than the subareas shown. To better represent the extent of shallow water (less than 20 metres or 60 feet depth) fisheries, the subareas were clipped at the wider of 1 km from shore or the 20 metre depth contour.

To allow comparison of the relative contribution of each subarea to the Haida Gwaii/QCI fishery each year, the data were analysed as follows.

For each yearly supply map:

  • Catch by subarea resolution was obtained for the all areas possible;
  • Percentage contribution of each subarea (to the total annual catch reported over all the subareas possible) was calculated;
  • Subareas were ranked from highest to lowest percent contribution for the year;
  • Subareas were ranked HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW commercial supply value based on this ranking and the cumulative percentage of catch these subareas supplied to the commercial fishery. In this way, the subareas that contributed the most catch to a fishery in any given year was assigned a HIGH supply value, and those that contributed least to a fishery were assigned a LOW value;
  • HIGH commercial supply value (red) was assigned to those subareas that made up the highest (first) 40% or more of the catch;
  • MODERATE commercial supply value (orange) made up the next 40% of the catch (to a cumulative percent value of 80% or more);
  • LOW commercial supply value (yellow) made up the last 20% of the annual catch (to a cumulative percentage of 100%);
  • UNDISCLOSED commercial supply value (purple) was assigned to all other subarea polygons where landings had been reported but where catch data was withheld for confidentiality reasons;
  • The commercial catch graph accompanying each yearly catch map shows the actual values attributed to the HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW and UNDISCLOSED supply categories for that year. A larger downloadable catch graph that shows the catch distribution in more detail is available for each species.

For summary maps showing all years of data combined:

  • Catch by subarea resolution by year for all areas possible was totaled to generate a summary of total catch over all years for each subarea with reported catch;
  • Percentage contribution of each subarea to the total reported catch, ranking and supply categories were determined using the same analysis as done to produce the yearly supply maps.
  • Note that because of this analysis method, the accompanying graph showing yearly catch over the given time period is not a direct reflection of the amount of catch in each supply category in the ‘all years’ map. In addition, the UNDISCLOSED supply areas do not show in the ‘all years’ map because landings were reported at least once in each subarea within the ‘all years’ time period.
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