Fisheries Online Information System - Survey of pelagic and demersal habitats within the northern California Current

The Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) conducts a comprehensive groundfish bottom trawl survey encompassing the U.S. West Coast between the borders with Canada and Mexico (Keller et al. 2008) and water depths of 50 to 1280 meters. This survey was not designed to quantitatively sample the young-of-the-year (YOY) life history stage. Since 1996, the Zooplankton Program at the NWFSC has conducted biweekly hydrography and plankton cruises along the Newport Hydrographic line (NH-Line) across the central Oregon shelf (44.67N) (e.g., Peterson and Keister 2003, Peterson 2009). On each cruise, hydrographic measurements and zooplankton samples are collected at stations ranging from 1 to 25 miles from shore. These zooplankton cruises build on and complement a broad range of historic and ongoing oceanographic sampling focused on the NH-Line. For FY11, the NWFSC received Cooperative Research funding to conduct a seasonal fishing vessel-based survey of young-of-the-year (YOY) groundfishes along the NH-Line synoptically with the Zooplankton Labs plankton/physical oceanography sampling program. The YOY groundfish, ichthyoplnakton and zoopplankton work are, in part, operating as a cooperative survey of pelagic and demersal habitats within the northern California Current,. The database stores data from ongoing field collections made by the OSU Fisheries Oceanography Research Team in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries. Field activities include plankton tows, benthic beam trawls, water column hydrographic profiles, and in-situ video observations of fish behavior.

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  "https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nmfs/nwfsc/dmp/pdf/18424.pdf"
]