Maritimes Region Longline and Trap Gear Fisheries Footprint

Data layers show commercial fishery footprints for directed fisheries using bottom and pelagic longlines for groundfish and large pelagics respectively, and traps for hagfish, LFA 41 and Grey Zone lobster, snow crab, and other crab on the Scotian Shelf, the Bay of Fundy, and Georges Bank in NAFO Divisions 4VWX and Canadian portions of 5Y and 5Z. Bottom longline and trap fishery maps aggregate commercial logbook effort (bottom longline soak time and logbook entries) per 2-minute grid cell using 2002–2017 data. Pelagic longline maps aggregate speed-filtered vessel monitoring system (VMS) track lines as vessel minutes per km2 on a base-10 log scale using 2003–2018 data. The following data layers are included in the mapping service for use in marine spatial planning and ecological risk assessment: 1) multi-year and quarterly composite data layers for bottom longline and trap gear, and 2) multi-year and monthly composite data layers for pelagic longline gear. Additional details are available online: S. Butler, D. Ibarra and S. Coffen-Smout, 2019. Maritimes Region Longline and Trap Fisheries Footprint Mapping for Marine Spatial Planning and Risk Assessment. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3293: v + 30 p. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/mpo-dfo/Fs97-6-3293-eng.pdf