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Technical Documentation, State of the Ecosystem Report

79 Verified Records of Southern Kingfish

Description: Fisheries Observer Data – Verified Records of Southern Kingfish

Found in: State of the Ecosystem - Mid-Atlantic (2018)

Indicator category: Database pull

Contributor(s): Debra Duarte, Loren Kellogg

Data steward: Gina Shield,

Point of contact: Gina Shield,

Public availability statement: Due to PII concerns data for this indicator are not publicly available.

79.1 Methods

79.1.1 Data sources

The Fisheries Monitoring and Research Division deploys observers on commercial fisheries trips from Maine to North Carolina. On observed tows, observers must fully document all kept and discarded species encountered. Observers must comply with a Species Verification Program (SVP), which requires photo or sample submissions of high priority species at least once per quarter. Photos and samples submitted for verification are identified independently by at least two reviewers.

The derived data presented in the Mid-Atlantic State of the Ecosystem report for southern kingfish include records verified by the SVP program only. The occurrence of southern kingfish in SVP records were chosen for inclusion in the report due to the recent increases of the species in SVP observer records since 2010. These data are not a complete list from the Northeast Fisheries Observer Program (NEFOP). Southern Kingfish are less common than Northern Kingfish in observer data and are possibly misidentified so we have initially included records here only when a specimen record was submitted to and verified through the SVP (see Data extraction).

79.1.2 Data extraction

SQL query for observer data extraction can be found here.

79.1.3 Data analysis

Time series were summed by year and plotted, and mapped data for individual records were plotted according to the location where gear was hauled. As coordinate data were not always available for each record, the map does not include all occurrences of southern kingfish, but was included for spatial context.

catalog link No associated catalog page