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See Also
minor, local, and pfma.
minor
Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission Minor Areas
Description
PolySet of polygons for the PMFC minor areas.
Format
Data frame consisting of 6 columns: PID = primary polygon ID, POS = position of each
vertex within a given polygon, X = longitude coordinates, Y = latitude coordinates, minor
= PMFC minor area numeric code, and pmfc = PMFC minor area designation.
Note
In R, the data must be loaded using the data function. In S, the data are loaded automatically on demand.
Source
Polygon data in use at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Pacific region) for delimiting Pacific
Marine Fisheries Commission (PMFC) minor areas.
The international PFMC established areas along the North American Pacific coast from
California to Alaska (Tagart, 1991). These correspond roughly to reporting regions for
the U.S. triennial surveys. They also fit into a Canadian scheme of dividing the coast into
major areas, where Canadian areas 3-9 correspond to PFMC areas 3C, 3D, 5A, 5B, 5C,
5D, and 5E. The major areas have hierarchical breakdowns into minor areas and localities
(Table 3.2, Fig. 3.2a, Schnute et al. 2001). The major areas cover the BC coast, and
the minor areas simply cover the coast with a larger number of subdivisions. Based on
historic fishing grounds, each minor area contains localities. These typically leave holes,
so that a minor area can consist of various defined localities plus other regions. Each
locality has a code number within the minor area, where 9 always means ’other’, i.e.,
outside the identified localities. Another code 0 denotes an unknown locality, rather than
9. Simplified, majors cover the BC coast, so do minors, but localities do not.
References
Schnute, J.T., R. Haigh, B.A. Krishka, and P. Starr. 2001. Pacific ocean perch assessment
for the west coast of Canada in 2001. Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, Research
Document 2001/138, 90 p.