FISHERIES DATA PORTAL

The living resources of Galveston Bay include many species of finfish, shellfish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife. Many wildlife species are native to the Galveston Bay area with some being plentiful and others being rare, threatened, or endangered. Other species come from distant parts of the world and are considered exotic or invasive.

A number of government agencies collect data describing the health and productivity of living resources in Galveston Bay. The Galveston Bay Status and Trends Project works to collect, manage, and analyze these data. Unfortunately, data describing the status and trends of all species found in the bay area are not available, but there are several large data sets that give insight into the health of coastal fisheries populations and colonial nesting waterbirds. These data are highlighted here.

Use the Fisheries Data Portal to:

• View population trends data for species of finfish and shellfish that inhabit Galveston Bay subbays (small bays that make up the larger bay system).
• Use the interactive graphs to browse annual and monthly catch per unit effort (CPUE, which is described below) data for selected species.
• Download the raw data in Excel format

How to Use the Fisheries Data Portal

STEP 1: Select a sampling gear type from the drop down list.
STEP 2: Select a subbay from the map of Galveston Bay.
STEP 3: Select a species of interest (all are listed by common name).
STEP 4: Click on the bar graph to drill down through time (view data in graph and table format).
STEP 5: Download the data set (the raw data for the user’s selection) in Excel format.

Note: Little or no data may be available for some species when certain gear types or subbays are chosen because the gear types are selective for certain sizes, life history stages, and preferred habitats of the finfish and shellfish species. Additionally, the distribution of many species is not uniform throughout the bay. A species may inhabit different areas of the bay or even leave the bay for the Gulf of Mexico depending upon the time of year and the species’ life history stage (egg, larvae, juvenile, adult, etc.).