June 13, 2017 — Randy Cushman rises before dawn each day, drives down to his trawler at Port Clyde Harbor and meets his crew. They prep their boat and head out for another day of chasing flounder and halibut. These days, Cushman and his crew rest easier and sleep in a little later, thanks to the camera installed in the boat’s wheelhouse.
“We used to have to take observers to help count our catch,” said Cushman.
Regulations had required observers appointed to certain vessels by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to help keep track of fish stock.
“Taking an observer out with you is cumbersome,” Cushman said. “You have to train them, get down to the boat an hour early. Sometimes they clash with the crew. And you have to worry about another body on your boat. The camera eliminates those issues. And there are a lot more advantages than that.”
For three years, Cushman has been participating in the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association’s Electronic Monitoring System pilot project. The project swaps out the observers with surveillance cameras in order to count fish and take other observations on board New England groundfish vessels.
In the groundfish industry, 15 percent of trips must be covered by observers. The data gleaned from those trips is then used to portray industry norms.
All legal fish are counted at the docks, but until recently only human observers could properly count fish that were thrown back in the ocean.