The Drop Camera Survey has provided has been a cooperative survey conducted with the commercial scallop industry since 1999. These data are utilized in stock monitoring efforts each year to help set management regulation and are also included in the stock assessment. While the historical scope of the survey was focused on the United States portions of Georges Bank and the Mid-Atlantic scallop areas, it has more recently expanded to the Canadian scallop fishing grounds as well as Argentina.
Video Trawl Survey
The video trawl survey has operated as a fishery independent survey method since 2013 for groundfish stocks in both the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank. Researchers in our lab as well as the fishing industry worked collaboratively to develop this open cod end otter trawl which not only records fish as they pass through the net, but also allows researchers to sample fishing grounds without retaining any catch. This survey method created a sustainable way to survey fisheries particularly for sensitive stocks.
Ventless Trap and Larval Surveys
The Marine Fisheries Field Research has periodically sampled lobster through ventless trap methods and larval sampling inshore within Buzzards Bay. Recently, as offshore wind development has progressed our research has shifted offshore employing the same methodology. We have been utilizing ventless trap survey as part of the offshore wind development environmental impact assessments since 2019 when Vineyard Wind became a leader in the U.S. offshore wind sector.
Whelk Surveys
We collaborate with industry partners to acquire seasonal samples of multiple size ranges of whelks from Buzzards Bay, Nantucket Sound, and Vineyard Sound. We sample whelks each month or season to produce estimates of age and size of maturity and volumetrically subsample eggs from ripe females to estimate fecundity and its relation to size. The whelk survey project began in 2022 and expected to continue for the next year.