Lake Ontario Deepwater Sculpin Bottom Trawl Catch and Biological Data, 1996-2016

Deepwater Sculpin are important in oligotrophic lakes as one of the few fishes that use deep profundal habitats and link invertebrates in those habitats to piscivores. In Lake Ontario the species was once abundant, however drastic declines in the mid-1900s led some to suggest the species had been extirpated and ultimately led Canadian and U.S. agencies to elevate the species’ conservation status in the 1990s. Following multiple decades of annual surveys with no captures, Deepwater Sculpin were first caught in low numbers in 1996 and by the early 2000s there were indications of population recovery. These data sets were used to update the status of Lake Ontario Deepwater Sculpin through 2016 to inform resource management and conservation. [...]