California Current Ecosystem Assessment (transect)

This layer is intended to represent the geographic extent of NOAA Fisheries’ California Current Ecosystem Survey. The California Current Ecosystem Survey started in 2006 and is led by NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center. This survey monitors West Coast coastal pelagic fish species (CPS) including the northern and central sub-populations of Northern Anchovy, the northern subpopulation of Pacific Sardine, Jack Mackerel, Pacific Mackerel, Pacific Herring, their prey items, and the biotic and abiotic environments of the California Current Ecosystem. These data are used to estimate the distribution, biomass, and demographics of species of interest to inform stock assessments. The CCES survey typically occurs annually between July and September on the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada, with a recent expansion into Mexico thanks to a collaboration with the Instituto Mexicano Investigación en Pesca y Acuacultura Sustentables (IMIPAS, formerly INAPESCA). During the day multifrequency, scientific echosounders, a continuous underway fish egg sampler (CUFES), and an underway conductivity-temperature-depth (UCTD) probe are all used to collect data. At night, surface trawls are conducted in locations where coastal pelagic species were observed acoustically during the day. The trawls serve to estimate the species composition and demographics of the fishes sampled acoustically during the day. In recent years, sampling from NOAA ships has been augmented with acoustic sampling by unmanned surface vehicles (Saildrone USVs), and with acoustic and purse-seine sampling from industry fishing vessels off WA, OR, and CA. The sampling from fishing vessels expands the survey into areas that are inhabited by CPS but are too shallow for the NOAA ships to safely navigate.

This data product is intended to help communicate the geographic extent of NOAA Fisheries’ scientific surveys on the continental margin of the U.S. West Coast. NOAA Fisheries conducts numerous scientific surveys to inform the status of fish stocks and protected resources. For the West Coast Region and Pacific Fisheries Management Council, more than a dozen surveys are conducted routinely across the continental margin, focusing either on pelagic or demersal species or the ecosystem as a whole. They collect a variety of biological and environmental data to provide a synoptic view of the habitats and ecosystems for which the target species inhabit. The surveys utilize varying designs including fixed stations where a number of operations are centered, transect lines where fishery acoustic data are continually collected, and stratified random sampling, to name a few.

Montlake facility

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Esri ArcGIS 13.4.0.55405

No missing features.

Features were confirmed and checked via team review.

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Data were loaded from source data into ArcGIS Pro and a definition query was used in order to isolate the survey of interest, then published to ArcGIS Online.