Our Scientists – From Coast to Coast to Coast – Patrice Goudreau
Learn more about the science performed at the Maurice-Lamontagne Instititute.
Transcript
My name is Patrice Goudreau, and I am a mollusk stock assessment technician at Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Maurice Lamontagne Institute.
My role is to support the stock assessment and research teams to acquire information on the status of commercially fished mollusk populations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, mainly scallops and Stimpson's surf clam.
We fish in the same way as a commercial fish harvester, accumulate data, measure, collect samples for processing, and determine the status of populations of our resource.
After this fieldwork, we come back to the laboratory and process the samples we collected during our research mission, in particular by reading the ages of the shells of mollusks we collected.
The information from the age reading gives us the population structure on the bottom, which shows us whether we have regular recruitment.
We can then see the percentage of scallops reaching commercial size, meaning they will be able to be exploited by our fishers in our communities.
The work I do allows the biologists I work with to meet with these fishers with Fisheries Management and establish management plans that respect the resource, yet allow them to earn a living and provide jobs to people in their little communities.
- Date modified: