Saving Seafood

Fall Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey Wraps Up

December 14, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The COVID-19 pandemic and typical fall weather conditions were challenges, but the Cooperative Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey team and industry partners wrapped up a successful season in early November.

“Every single person on the bottom longline survey team worked incredibly hard to get the survey completed this fall,” said Anna Mercer, chief of the Cooperative Research Branch. “From building new software to installing new camera systems, from repeated COVID-19 testing to careful quarantining, from new work flows to new hardware, it was a true team effort.”

The survey targets groundfish at 45 stations across the Gulf of Maine using tub-trawl bottom longline gear. The survey plan focuses on rocky bottom habitat, where fish are difficult to sample with trawl gear.

Read the full release here

Gulf of Maine Longline Survey in Rocky Habitats Now in Sixth Year

February 21, 2020 — For fisheries managers around the world, trawl gear is an efficient way to sample species inhabiting the sea floor or the benthic column above. Depending on the size of the net, grid surveys will capture enough of the animals in the area at the time to compile data used in abundance models that go into stock assessments.  Unless the fish swim out of the net before it is hauled. Or unless the sea bottom is rocky or pinnacled.

In those areas, longline gear can help fill in the blind spots for regional surveys. Longline gear can be lain across rock piles, and retrieved without destroying the gear itself. It differs from a trawl net in several ways: the longline has baited hooks distributed evenly across its length, it is stationary, anchored to the sea floor with location buoys at the sea surface at each end, and it can be deployed by smaller vessels.

Read the full story at Seafood News