The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. Surveys of Marine Protected Areas have been conducted periodically in the Gulf of Mexico since 1978. Information has been provided on reef fish abundance and distribution, life history, bathymetry mapping and habitat characterization.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. The reef fish survey is conducted primarily on the outer continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico along topographic features (e.g. reefs, banks and ledges) between Brownsville, TX to the Dry Tortugas, FL. A two-stage sampling design is used with the first stage or primary sampling units being blocks 10 minutes of latitude by 10 minutes of longitude and the second stage being randomly selected sites within the blocks. The first-stage units are selected by stratified random sampling, with stratum boundaries defined by geographic region (4 regions: South Florida, Northeast Gulf, Louisiana-Texas Shelf, and South Texas), and by reef habitat area (Blocks < 20 km² reef, Blocks > 20 km² reef). Sampling is conducted using a video camera array, vertical line gear and chevron traps with approximately 400 video cameras, 400 vertical line and 100 traps conducted. The camera array consists of four housings positioned orthogonally and center mounted at a height of 51 cm above the bottom of the array. Each housing contains a pair of black-and-white Videre stereo cameras along with a color mpeg camera. Sampling of reef sites with video cameras occurs only during daylight hours, with the first gear deployment one hour after sunrise and the last gear retrieval one hour prior to sunset. Video arrays soak for 35 minutes. At sites selected for fish sampling, a chevron (or arrow) fish trap or vertical line is used to capture fish for biological samples. The chevron fish trap is constructed with 1.5-inch vinyl-clad mesh. In its greatest dimensions, the trap is 1.76 m in length, 1.52 m in width and 0.61 m in depth. A 0.4 m by 0.29 m blow out panel is placed on one side and kept closed using 7-day magnesium releases. The fish trap soaks for one hour and is baited with squid. The vertical line consists of a mainline with 10 gangions. One 8/0, 11/0 or 15/0 circle hook is attached to each gangion and baited with mackerel (Scomber scombrus). The mainline is soaked for five minutes. Most of the animals captured are measured, weighed, tagged and then released. Those individuals which are moribund or have expired are retained to collect biological data pertaining to the life history of these fishes. Habitat mapping is conducted using the SIMRAD ME70 multibeam echosounder. At each site hydrological data is collected using Conductivity Temperature Depth sensor (CTD).

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized reef fish video surveys in the Gulf of Mexico since 1992. The survey primarily occurs on the outer continental shelf along topographic features (e.g. reefs, banks and ledges) between Brownsville, TX to the Dry Tortugas, FL, and provides fisheries independent indices of reef fish abundance for use in stock assessments.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. The congressional supplemental sampling program (CSSP) was started in 2011 with the intent to provide additional information on key fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), create a truly synoptic survey, increase precision of relative abundance estimates, and to evaluate selectivity issues between gears and hook sizes. The survey was conducted on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico from Brownsville, Texas to the southwest coast of Florida from April 7 – October 25, 2011. Contract vessels provided captains and deck-crew, while the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) provided scientific crew. Two longline and one vertical line vessel sampled east GOM sites while two longline and one vertical line vessel simultaneously sampled west GOM sites. Vessels were deployed as close in time as possible to ensure temporal overlap and to provide as synoptic a GOM-wide data set as possible. Randomly selected stations are restricted from being chosen within the boundaries of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (Stetson Bank, West Flower Garden Bank and East Flower Garden Bank), the Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Lumps marine protected areas, the Florida Middle Grounds, within 1 nautical mile (nm) of oil and gas platform structures, and within 1 nm of any other station in the stratum. All gear deployments were monitored using a shipboard SCS/FSCS computer system operated with weatherproof laptop computers with touch screen options. SCS/FSCS software will allow the acquisition of data to describe set and haul-back events (GMT time/date stamp, position and any other connected ship sensors). Environmental data was collected using a Seabird CTD profiler during fishing gear soaks to obtain temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen profiles. Set and catch data were ingested into an Oracle data set and stored as a relational data set.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. Environmental profiles are acquired during all surveys and are averaged into one meter depth bins. The data are acquired with Sea-Bird SBE25 and SBE9 profilers equipped with water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, beam transmittance, and fluorescence sensors. The data are processed with Sea-Bird software using a standard processing protocol.

A survey was conducted in 2013 by NOAA Fisheries Mississippi Labs and the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) to collect data on angler fishing practices and sea turtle interactions. The survey was conducted as a pilot project from June-September at six different access points that were selected based on prior history of incidental captures and location so that surveys were conducted in all three coastal counties. Participating anglers were asked general questions about fishing practices such as typical fishing times and locations, and type of hook and bait used. They were also asked if they had caught or observed the capture of a sea turtle in the last 12 months and the outcome of the capture.

This data set contains ROV digital video data stored on DVDs and raw CTD data

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. Deepwater groupers, snappers and shrimp were sampled in the western Gulf of Mexico using a bottom trawl and bottom longline.

This data set is a Microsoft Access database containing detailed station data (station name number, date, location, depth, time, and bottom temperature) as well as species, fish counts and measurements, and habitat data derived from the raw video and still images and from chevron fish traps.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) staff conducted shore-based creel surveys which have 2 major sub-surveys; one to estimate participation (fishing effort), and one to provide catch-rate (CPUE), species composition data, and size of fishes. As is the case for all of these shore-based surveys, shore-based means fishing without a powered boat and can include effort such as spearfishing. DFW made early attempts at shore-based creel surveying back in the early years, but many problems existed and there were limited resources available. It is not likely that the older data was converted from the Apple to the PC environment, but this needs to be checked. A new survey design was created and implemented in about 2005 and is continuing. It has mostly focused on the west coast lagoon side of Saipan but recently has been extended to the south and part of the west coast where some shoreline areas are accessible as well. These data are considered confidential.