Ministry of Environment

Fish Data Submission – Data Requirements:

The Minimum Data Submission falls into 4 broad categories of information:

Referencing Information

Author - Name of report author or project manager.
Title or Project Name - Name of report or project.
Material Type - Indicate the data type of the source information. Options are: Field Notes, Technical Report, Unpublished Progress Report, Final Project Report, Research Paper, Thesis, Proceedings, or Published Book.
Publisher - May be the actual publisher of the reference or the organization responsible for producing the information.
Publisher Location - Physical location and contact information for the publisher.
Purpose - The reason for the data collection. Options are: Salvage, Stream Classification, Inventory, Environmental Impact Assessment, Restoration, and Other (if other is chosen, please describe).
Collection Permit Number - The permit number on the issued permit.
Agency - Agency that conducted the sampling.

Professional Biologist Sign-off:

Indication of Professional Sign-off - A Yes or No answer to indicate whether the data has been signed-off by a registered professional biologist.
Province or State of Registration - If Yes indicated above, provide the province of registration of the biologist.
Biologist's Name - If Yes indicated above, provide the name of the biologist.
Registration Number - If yes indicated above, provide the registration number of the biologist.

Location Information (Required for each site):

Gazetted Name – Name of the stream, if stream is unnamed state "Unnamed Stream" (link to standards).
Alias or Local Name – Any local name or alias used to describe the stream (link to standards).
Watershed Code – 45 digit watershed (link to standards).
Site Number – This would be site number or name assigned for your project or report.
Sampling Date – This is the date when the sampling took place at the site. Do not use a blanket range of dates that spans the entire sampling for the project or study.
Location Coordinate – Must provide a UTM coordinate representing each sample site (link to geo-referencing standards). UTM coordinate must include the UTM zone number; an Easting value of six significant digits, and a Northing value of seven significant digits (1 metre precision, NAD 83).

Sampling Information (Required for each site):

Sampling Method – List the sampling techiques used at the site. If electrofishing was used, it is suggested that you also provide temperature and conductivity measurements of the water at each site, since the effectiveness of electrofishing is closely related to these parameters.
Sampling Effort – For electrofishing this would be number of electrofishing seconds and the length and width of the site sampled. For net techniques, this would be the mesh size, net length, depth of set, and soak times. For angling, this would be number of rods and angler hours.
ID of Species Caught, Stage or Age, and Total Number Caught - For each application of a techique at a site, the species caught and the total numbers caught, broken out by stage or age should be listed.
Stream Classification Specific Information – If your study was a Stream Classification Project, it is suggested that you provide the following information:
- Channel Widths – The individual channel widths measured at the site. Do not give the average (link to standards).
- Channel Widths Methods – The method used to measure channel width.
- Gradients – The individual gradients measured at the site. Do not give the average (link to standards).
- Gradient Methods – The method used to measure the gradient.
- No Visible Channel Indicator – Yes or No, indicating whether the site was a non-visible channel.

If you have questions about the minimum standards and formats, please send an email to fishdatasub@gov.bc.ca.