Calling All Divers!

The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre invites you to take part in the 15th Annual Lingcod Egg Mass Survey

Lingcod, photo credits: Ken Wong

By taking part in the Annual Lingcod Egg Mass Survey, you are helping to gather important information about a valuable local resource. We ought to be very concerned when a stock has reached 3-5% of what it was a century ago. Divers participating in this annual survey collect information on the number, size, condition, and position of egg masses, as well as whether or not a guarding male is present. Data such as these help us determine the health of local lingcod populations.

The 2008 Survey will take place starting in February 2008. The peak time to gather and submit data online to us is between February 16 to 24, but we will be accepting data starting February 2 and ending March 10, 2008.

The lingcod is a bottom dwelling fish that inhabits the local waters of B.C.'s coast. Lingcod can grow up to five feet in length and weigh up to one hundred pounds. They are popular with both divers and fishermen.

The lingcod projects at the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, including the Lingcod Egg Mass Survey and lingcod rearing in the research laboratory, have emerged due to serious concerns regarding the overfishing of lingcod stocks. Strait of Georgia Lingcod stocks are just 7-22% of what they were 100 years ago except for the Vancouver area, at less than 1%. In 1990, the commercial fishery for lingcod was stopped and in 2002, sportfishing for lingcod was banned in the Strait of Georgia.
Annual Lingcod Egg Mass Survey

In 1994 the Marine Life Sanctuaries Society (MLSS) created a project to involve the sport diving community in assisting with the collection of data on lingcod populations. At the time the commercial lingcod fishery in Georgia Strait had recently been closed, and the sport fishery was restricted by new size limits and annual bag limits. This project, now sponsored and organized by the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, is called the Lingcod Egg Mass Survey (LEMS).

The survey is carried out just after mature female lingcod spawn. After spawning, the female retreats into deeper waters, leaving the male to guard the nest site. The size of the egg mass indicates the age of the spawning female and the number of egg masses observed in a given area help researchers determine lingcod abundance. The survey uses data collected by volunteer divers to evaluate the status of lingcod populations on the coast of B.C. These data provide information on the reproductive outputs of lingcod, as well as an insight into the age structure of the female lingcod population.

In 2002, there were 70 dives conducted searching for lingcod egg masses. While it appears that stocks are holding steady, there was a significant change in the age structure of lingcod spawning in Howe Sound, indicating a spawning failure for the 1995 year-class (lingcod born in 1995), which had been dominant in the 2000 and 2001 surveys. Though it is impossible to say for sure what happened to these lingcod, overfishing is the most likely reason.