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2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey Completed in Northeast

Annual spring fisheries survey completes nearly 100 percent of stations.

New England/Mid-Atlantic

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Image
An orange sorting basket partially filled with several smaller monkfish that are about the size of footballs.
Monkfish can be found in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, south to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the United States. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Andy Jones

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s bottom trawl survey is among the longest running of their kind in the world. They provide more than 60 years of standardized data collected during a time of significant change in the ocean around us.

Dates and Legs

The 2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey began on March 6 and completed operations on May 16 aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow. This year’s spring survey occurred in three legs, moving from south to north.

Location

This survey monitors fishery stock abundance and distribution on the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf from Cape Lookout, North Carolina, to the Scotian Shelf.

Completion Rates

The survey team conducted and/or collected:

  • Fishery resource survey tows and oceanographic sampling at 370 of 377 planned stations (98 percent completion)
  • Plankton samples at 116 of 116 planned stations (100 percent completion)
  • Pilot eDNA project samples at 77 stations

Despite a few small delays related to weather and operations, the spring 2025 survey is considered a fully representative survey.

Survey Mission

The Bigelow supports a variety of marine research on this multispecies bottom-trawl survey. The most important of its missions is to monitor the region’s fishery resources. These data are critical inputs to regional fish stock assessments. They help inform fishery management decisions by the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils as well as Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Data Collection and Use

Data collected are used to track fish ages, lengths, weights, sex, maturity, and food habits. The survey also collects taxonomic data and hundreds of special sample requests for partner institutions.

The temperature and salinity profiles we collect during the survey help link fish distribution to physical oceanographic conditions.

We use bongo nets to collect zooplankton, including larval fish and eggs, which help us:

  • Understand fish spawning distributions
  • Estimate fish abundance changes
  • Construct models that support ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management

During this survey, we collected water samples at a subset of stations to be analyzed for environmental DNA. The focus of this pilot project is to develop a method that can be incorporated with our trawl sampling. One benefit of eDNA is it provides a robust indication of species richness and composition, and can provide information on species that are not caught by the trawl.

We release survey data annually, about 3 months after the survey is complete. When available, the data can be found on our survey page.

Bottom Trawl Stations in the Mid-Atlantic

A chart showing the U.S. East Coast and adjacent ocean waters. A dots and triangles mark the location of each completed station.
Northeast Fisheries Science Center 2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey completed stations in the Mid-Atlantic. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Bottom Trawl Stations in the Gulf of Maine

A chart showing the U.S. East Coast and adjacent ocean waters. Dots and triangles mark the location of each completed station.
Northeast Fisheries Science Center 2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey completed stations in the Gulf of Maine. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Percentage of Completed Bottom Trawl Stations

A chart showing the U.S. East Coast and adjacent ocean waters. A color overlay shows the trawl survey strata and the percent of planned stations completed in each. The majority of strata were 76 to 100 percent sampled.
Northeast Fisheries Science Center 2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey percent of planned trawl and conductivity, temperature, and depth stations that were completed in each survey stratum. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Percentage of Completed Plankton Stations

A chart showing the U.S. East Coast and adjacent ocean waters. A color overlay shows the survey strata and the percent of planned stations completed in each. All strata were 100 percent sampled.
Northeast Fisheries Science Center 2025 Spring Bottom Trawl Survey percent of planned plankton stations that were completed in each survey stratum. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

More Information

More Information

Last updated by Northeast Fisheries Science Center on 06/16/2025