NE Regional Cod Tagging Program

Analysis

Good progress is being made on the analysis of this Program's recapture data. It is hoped that the Program will continue to receive recapture information for many months to come, because long-term recaptures will be valuable when looking for inter-annual trends.

A summary of work completed during the first 3 years of this Program are detailed in the June 2006 Final Report, submitted to the Cooperative Research Partners Program upon the completion of GMRI's original cod tagging contract. Some of the results by June 2006 are also summarized below. However, the most recent overview of findings to date is now available in the January 2008 mailing. This mailing has been distributed to ~5,000 stakeholders in the US and Canada, throughout the Gulf of Maine region.

Realistic expectations of the Program's data:

Bearing in mind the Program's aims, experimental design and the data collected, the realistic expectations of what this Program can deliver are as follows:

•	Provide region-wide, contemporary information on cod movements and exchange rates between areas;
•	Yield growth data to supplement that found in other growth studies;
•	Yield data (emigration, immigration & growth) to supplement other data used in stock assessments;
•	Produce visible and long-term data which is accessible to the public;
•	Ensure region-wide & international collaboration between industry, science & management;
•	Provide recommendations for future research;
•	Provide useful advice for future study designs (e.g. in outreach methods and tagging methodology)

Analytical tools:

The analytical tools currently in development address the following:

•	Reporting rates
•	Shedding rates (both of which are also necessary for weighting the releases and recaptures)
•	Size relationships of tagged cod
•	Growth rates
•	Displacement (overall and seasonal)
•	Dispersal/exchange between areas

This page will be updated as analysis progresses
and as publications become available.
Please keep checking in!