Archive · dataset · 2026
International Pacific Salmon Data Legacy Database
Listed in CIOOS Pacific
A new electronic archive has been assembled containing records of the data collected by salmon research vessels in the North Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas since the middle of the 20th century.
Description
Most of the data were collected under the auspices of the INPFC (International North Pacific Fisheries Commission) that existed from 1953–1992. It had three member countries (Canada, Japan, and the United States of America) that were interested, primarily, in determining the vulnerability of salmon produced by their nations to capture by high seas salmon fishing, primarily by the Japanese.
The INPFC coordinated the most comprehensive international scientific investigation of the biology of salmon in the open ocean in history. As political interest in knowing about the biology of salmon on the high seas waned in the 1970s, the various agencies involved in exploratory salmon fishing expeditions have exhibited variable levels of care for the records of biological significance that were generated during this era.
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These data are important because they continue to form the basis of what is known about Pacific salmon abundance and distribution beyond the continental shelves. Contemporary and future assessments of change must be compared to these records. In July 2025, the archive (Version 1.5.1) currently includes over 50,000 fishing operations (position, date, catch, effort, SST) and over 1.1 million salmon examined (length, weight, sex, age, gonad size).
Missing data in some fields are common. Much of the archive contains what had previously been transcribed into various electronic formats by different agencies at different times since the 1960s. The present effort was to develop a common format and coding system for measurements and observations that were shared in common by different agencies.
Fortunately, scientists working under INPFC had established data exchange protocols and standards so much of the basic data about salmon was collected and recorded using similar methods.
Links
Get the data
- npafc.org /wp-content/uploads/IPSDL/IPSDL_1.5.1.zip ↗
International Pacific Salmon Data Legacy Database
download · from catalogue cioospacific ca
Where it is published
- CIOOS Pacific dataset page catalogue.cioospacific.ca/dataset/ca-cioos_7d6e7505-fdd7-4cbe-abbf-0f17c5c16113 ↗
landing page · from catalogue cioospacific ca
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API catalogue.cioospacific.ca/api/3/action/package_show?id=e00a3109-6dc6-4887-8d8f-4681ac179… ↗
metadata API · from catalogue cioospacific ca
Related
- Possibly the same asInternational Pacific Salmon Data Legacy Database
Provenance · 1 source records, 7 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIOOS Pacific | e00a3109-6dc6-4887-8d8f-4681ac179610 | 2 h ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | /notes |
| license | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | /license_id |
| publication_date | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · catalogue cioospacific ca | connector:catalogue_cioospacific_ca@1.0.0 |