Maritimes Recreational Shark Fishery Derbies

OBIS and OBIS Canada

The Maritimes Recreational Shark Fishery has been active since 1993. Biological data collected from the recreational fishery is used to develop an assessment of stock status and the general health of the population, particularly that of blue sharks.

Shark fishing derbies are held each year in waters off Nova Scotia, usually during the months of July, August and September. These are commercial or community-sponsored events, and are not sponsored by DFO or the Shark Research Lab. However, the catches provide excellent samples for scientific examination, and thus all catches are closely monitored. The species most often caught is the blue shark. However the occasional thresher or porbeagle shark is also caught. Shortfin mako sharks are not uncommon in Canadian waters. Other species of shark do occur in Nova Scotian waters, however many of them prefer warmer waters that are associated with the Gulf Stream, or deeper waters which make them unlikely to be caught by recreational anglers.

Versions of the derby data may be restricted to blue sharks only, since that comprises 99% of the catch.

Users of records from this data set are advised to contact the PI for additional information prior to inclusion in publications.

N/A

This dataset was downloaded from OBIS (https://obis.org/). The records for only marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles and rays and sharks were extracted. Records with no longitude/latitude or no date (eventDate) were excluded.
OBIS dataset page:
https://obis.org/dataset/ed776303-7bc4-49f3-b005-9e1388aaab57
Data Provider's dataset page:
http://ipt.iobis.org/obiscanada/resource?r=mar_shark_derbies

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Internal ID
id	Record ID
dataset_id	Dataset ID
scientificname	Scientific name
vernacularname	Vernacular name
aphiaid	Aphia ID
taxonrank	taxononic rank
individualcount	Group size / individual count
eventdate	Event date (precision varies)
eventtime	Event time
decimallatitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
decimallongitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
coordinateprecision	Coordinate precision
catalognumber	Catalog number
collectioncode	Collection code
occurrencestatus	Occurrence status
basisofrecord	Basis of record (HumanObservation / MachineObservation)
modified	Date/time the record was modified
node_id	Node ID
occurrenceid	Occurrence ID
occurrenceremarks	Occurrence remarks
eventid	Event ID
institutioncode	Institution code
lifestage	Life stage
sex	Gender of the animal if known
species	Species by provider
datasetid	Dataset ID by provider
country	Country
locality	Location of ocean
waterbody	Details of ocean
dropped	Flag indicating the record was dropped (always false)
absence	Flag indicating the record represents the absence of the species (always false)
marine	Flag indicating the record is for marine life (always true)