Mississippi Laboratories

The Mississippi Laboratory was established in 1950 under the Department of Interior as a Bureau of Commercial Fisheries field station. In 1970, the laboratory was transferred to the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service. The Mississippi Laboratories consist of two branches:

(1) Resource Surveys Branch: The Resource Surveys Branch conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys to collect information on Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic and U.S. Caribbean Sea fish and crustacean resources. Information collected includes abundance, distribution, and associated habitat and environmental data.

(2) Harvesting and Engineering Branch: The Harvesting Unit conducts fisheries dependent and fisheries independent research to design and evaluate bycatch mitigation methods, including Turtle Excluder Devices and Bycatch Reduction Devices. This unit also conducts technology transfer and outreach/education to fishermen, law enforcement and international countries. The Engineering Unit conducts research, designs and implements advanced technologies such as acoustics data collection, develops electronic measuring devices, and tests and implements data collection using Automated Underwater Vehicles. This unit also conducts multi-species and ecosystem analyses to support stock assessments and Integrated Ecosystem Assessments.

To conduct research and resource surveys to evaluate the health and status of the marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean Sea.

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Validation routines are applied during data entry to ensure the integrity of data collected. Data validation routines are also applied as data are migrated into the centralized data management system.