Yellowtail Tagging Data (MRDBS)

The Yellowtail Flounder Tagging Program began in 2003 and works with commercial fishermen to tag and release yellowtaiI flounder with pink and yellow disc tags or green data storage tags throughout New England. The location, date and various Information is recorded upon the release of the tagged fish and the same information is recorded when the fish is recaptured by fishermen or other reporters. From this information stock movements, mortality, and growth can be estimated which leads to more accurate biological and stock assessments.

The yellowtall flounder fishery is one of the most valuable and productive in New England, however more information is needed for accurate assessments and management plans. The major goals of this tagging program are to estimate yellowtail movement between the three stock areas, namely Cape Cod/Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic. Also to estimate mortality rates within the stock areas and observe growth and behavior.

It is highly recommended that all data request be accompanied by a request for summary of support tables to guide the end-user on data input and data applications.

Send request to Larry.Alade@noaa.gov along with brief intent for data utility and applications.

NEFSC Data Access Procedure:

1. Formal request in writing usually to the data owner/contact or Center Director;

2. Requester is contacted by data owner to review and verify the request content and details for data delivery options.

3. If data is confidential then owner will determine if the data may be released to the requester;

4. If data can be released, the data is downloaded and packaged for delivery electronically; or the requester may be directed to where the data is available online.

Network access required

NEFSC Data Access Constraint:

If data is stored on an internal NEFSC network, the requester may not have direct access to query the data unless they are also authorized for network access.

Data application should be conducted withinthe scope of the study objectives which are mainly to characterize/estimate movement, mortality and growth of yellowtail flounder in the New England region.

Oracle Database on Centralized Data Management System

Few recaptures without geographical coordinates or date of recapture and Self reported length measurements

Location, vessel, and PII data has been redacted.

For recaptures without accurate geographical coordinates but with general knowledge of recapture area, a search algorithm is used to derive the center of recapture location to estimate a lat/long for the recapture location.

Manual auditing and post processing of release and recapture data by internal personnel to check for keypunch errors and data outliers coupled with simple summary statistics to gauge the data quality against known biological parameters such as length, age, maturity status etc.

Data will be archived once a solution for archiving relational data sets is defined

Archival of source data preserving unaltered collected data, Scheduled backups, Remote storage backups, Password protection

Release data was recorded from scheduled cooperative research cruises on commercial fishing vessels. Recapture information is received from commercial and recreational fishermen and entered into the MRDBS database using a web application with extensive audits.