At-Sea-Monitoring Archives - Page 19 of 32

Pacific Council Approves Electronic Monitoring for West Coast Trawlers

April 11, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Pacific Fishery Management Council heard updates on an exempted fishing permit (EFP) and took final action to approve electronic monitoring (EM) in the bottom trawl and non-whiting midwater trawl fisheries. The Council is meeting this week in Sacramento, Calif.

Fishermen, regulators and NGOs like Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy have long been interested in EM’s potential as an alternative to the 100 percent human observer coverage requirement for fishing vessels targeting groundfish in the two trawl sectors. This is a follow-on to the Council’s 2016 action authorizing EM for the fixed gear and whiting sectors of the fleet, and once implemented will allow anyone in the West Coast trawl groundfish catch shares program to use EM in lieu of human observers.

Four EFPs for the various gear types have been active since 2015, testing camera systems and EM video data review protocols, and evaluating costs for fishermen. The Council’s final action builds on lessons learned in those EM trials and reflects increased confidence that EM can work in the trawl sector.

Although some questions remain about the final EM program – including a formal implementation date, optimal level of video review, specifics of estimating Pacific halibut bycatch mortality and whether the video review contract now held by Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission will need to go out for third-party bids – the approval is a significant step forward for groundfish trawlers.

In addition to recommendations from its Groundfish Electronic Monitoring Policy Advisory Committee (GEMPAC), Groundfish Management Team (GMT) and Groundfish Advisory Panel (GAP), the Council also heard public comments from industry reps, EFP participants and NGOs involved with the EFPs. Based on those aligned recommendations, the Council’s near-unanimous motion aimed at maintaining necessary accountability at the lowest possible cost included:

That logbooks serve as the primary data source for documenting at-sea discards, and that video review serves to confirm the accuracy of logbook data;
That review rates for video begin at 100 percent but will be lowered in the future to the level sufficient to confirm the accuracy of discard data and maintain incentives for fishermen to continue employing best practices;
That Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission continues as the video reviewer;
That methods to accurately account for discard mortality of Pacific halibut be developed.

Oregon Trawl Commission Director Brad Pettinger noted in his testimony that the significant cost-savings potential of EM – while maintaining 100 percent accountability – can add substantially to a fishing vessel’s bottom line.

“The indicators are that we can eventually get costs-per-day to the $200 – $300 range, which would be a dramatic cost savings over human observers,” Pettinger said in a statement.

Costs of human observers on vessels are estimated at around $500 or more per day.

Trawl sectors such as Pacific whiting would likely see greater cost savings than non-whiting trawl groundfish sectors.

The West Coast trawl catch shares program also utilizes catch monitors at the first receiver to track offloads. As participants have noted, human observers typically step off the vessel to become the catch monitor during offload.

The Environmental Defense Fund noted that while catch monitors are not part of the EFP, the issue should be addressed in the future.

“In geographically dispersed, lower volume ports (such as in California), the ability to train and retain [catch monitors] has been challenging. We have heard from industry as well as CM contractors that filling and funding these positions has been challenging under an EM model,” EDF noted in a public comment letter to the Council. “We encourage Council and NMFS to consider allowing cameras dockside, relaxing eligibility requirements for CMs or a combination of both to address this oncoming problem before it starts to prohibit participation in the fishery.”

A consistent theme of both Council and hallway discussions was that NMFS should look for every opportunity to streamline implementation procedures, keep costs down and put EM on the water as soon as practicable.

This story was originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

SEAN HORGAN: Bullard pushes case for electronic monitoring

April 10, 2017 — The FishOn gang was kicking around the subject of at-sea monitoring at our decennial staff meeting the other day and we came to a conclusion that absolutely no one can reasonably refute:

That singing in the rails means electronic monitoring is coming at some point to the Northeast groundfish industry and there ain’t no stopping that train.

Beyond that, nothing is certain.

How much will it cost fishermen to buy and install the system? Will the feds subsidize those purchases and associated costs? Will the systems be used on every trip and will they be active for every minute? What are the legal and privacy implications? Will the footage actually be viewed by computers and not humans? On and on it goes.

In the end, this could be a fight that makes the quota contretemps seem like high tea.

NOAA Regional Director John K. Bullard, making his first start of the year, came out last week throwing a mixture of heat and fluffy stuff in an open message to the fishery concerning EM.

He spent much of the top of the piece with off-speed stuff just off the outside corner in explaining why it is actually unfair “and a bit premature” to want to compare the costs of EM and traditional at-sea monitoring.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Electronic monitoring finally catching on among Alaska’s commercial fishermen

April 10, 2017 — Automation is coming to Alaska fishing boats in the form of cameras and sensors that track what’s coming and going over the rails.

Starting next year, electronic monitoring systems can officially replace human observers as fishery data collectors on Alaska boats using longline and pot gear. Vessel operators who do not voluntarily switch to electronic monitoring remain subject to human observer coverage on randomly selected fishing trips.

The onboard observer requirement originally covered vessels 59 feet and longer, but was restructured in 2013 to include boats down to 40 feet and, for the first time, was applied to the halibut fishery.

“Those smaller vessels have had a hard time accommodating human observers,” said Bill Tweit, vice chairman of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees the program.

Smaller boats also had a hard time with skyrocketing observer costs under the restructured program, which in some cases went from less than $300-$400 per day to more than $1,000.

Starting in 2013, 15 pot cod boats aligned with the Homer-based North Pacific Fisherman’s Association and Saltwater Inc. of Anchorage field tested electronic monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

Looking Forward to Looking Back: Electronic Monitoring in New England Groundfish

April 7, 2017 — The following has been released by John Bullard, Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region:

Electronic monitoring (EM) is being used for catch monitoring and reporting compliance in fisheries worldwide, but use in the Northeast has been somewhat limited. There are always challenges with ensuring the accuracy of self-reported fisheries catch data, but EM represents a new suite of tools to improve reporting accuracy and increase catch monitoring. If we want to provide scientists with the best information possible and manage our fisheries sustainably, then we need to consider all of the tools in the toolbox.

Here in the Greater Atlantic Region’s groundfish fishery, fishermen are considering EM to replace human at-sea monitors. Naturally, people want to compare costs. This is understandable; the cost of at-sea monitors is significant and has been the subject of much discussion, particularly because a portion of the costs are now borne by the industry. However, comparing only the costs of EM and at-sea monitors, as the programs exist today, without any context to what the programs offer, is unfair, difficult, and a bit premature.

Comparing the costs of the two programs is unfair because EM and at-sea monitors offer such different results. Right now, the at-sea monitoring program covers 14 percent of all trips. With a large portion of the fishery going unobserved and recognizing that fishing behavior may be different on unobserved trips, we may be missing out on a lot of critical information. EM could gather data from all trips, which is a quantum leap in the amount of information available to scientists. This could result in better science and potentially lower uncertainty when setting quotas. So while at-sea monitoring is a cost, EM could be an investment.

Comparing the costs is difficult because this is a classic case of apples and oranges; certain components of EM, like purchasing hardware and video review, don’t exist in an at-sea monitoring program. The EM cost estimates in our 2015 report were very conservative at every step, and when totaled, were quite high. That was a government exercise in assessing costs, but industry may be able to do better. When the government shifted the costs of at-sea monitoring to the fishing industry, the private sector negotiated lower costs for the same services. Is anyone surprised by that? And just like any electronic technology, EM is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper in a hurry. It is very difficult to project a cost for technology that will likely go into widespread use in a couple of years.

That brings me to my final point. Cost comparisons are premature. We don’t know what EM models we might use in the future. We don’t know if we can get financial support for startup costs, such as hardware acquisition. We don’t know how much of the video will need to be reviewed; review may even be done by computers. We don’t know what the required at-sea monitoring coverage will be when EM is fully developed. There are too many critical unknowns right now in EM to compare costs in a meaningful way.

Read the full release here

Stonington fishermen, first selectman: Camera proposal violates Fourth Amendment rights

April 7, 2017 — STONINGTON, Conn. — A proposal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could potentially require fishermen to purchase a camera monitoring system to ensure that they are adhering to regulations — a requirement that local fishermen and First Selectman Rob Simmons see as a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.

Based on a study done by the NOAA Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, electronic monitoring would potentially cost the fishermen around $500 per day per boat and require them to pay $60,000 for startup costs and annual maintenance of the equipment. While it’s less costly on a daily basis than the $700 per day cost of having a person doing at-sea monitoring on board a vessel, critics say the startup costs alone have the potential to put local fishermen out of business.

Aside from the costs of the proposed mandate, many see it as a violation of privacy.

Simmons, who’s been in touch with New Hampshire attorney Jason Crance, who has written legal papers on concerns with at-sea monitoring, said he feels this proposed mandate could potentially infringe on the Fourth Amendment rights of fishermen.

“I’m trying to see if there’s any sound legal argument into the intrusion of someone’s workplace because I believe this is a means of spying on Stonington’s fishermen,” he said. “They want to make sure the fishermen are complying with catch limit regulations but it seems like the government is assuming they aren’t complying. It’s like the state police putting a mini camera in my car next to a speedometer that monitors and notifies police when they go past 65.”

Read the full story at The Westerly Sun

Updates from NOAA Fisheries

March 28, 2017 — Groundfish Days-at-Sea Leasing Deadline Extended to March 31

NOAA Fisheries announces an extension of the 2016 Days-at-Sea leasing deadline for the northeast multispecies fishery. If you hold a groundfish permit for 2016, you may submit DAS leases through March 31.

2017 At-Sea Monitoring Coverage Levels for Groundfish Sector Fishery

NOAA Fisheries announces that for fishing year 2017 the total target At-Sea monitoring coverage level is 16 percent of all groundfish sector trips.

This target coverage level is a two-percentage point increase from the 2016 coverage level (14 percent). As the target coverage level is set based on an average of

At-Sea monitoring data from the past three full groundfish fishing years, this level is set based on data from the 2013-2015 fishing years.

Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM) requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement. Sectors will therefore actually pay for At-Sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates, which are not yet out.

We expect to be able to reimburse sectors for some portion of their ASM costs. We do not yet have the information we need to determine the reimbursement rate. We were able to reimburse 85 percent of At-Sea monitoring costs in 2016, but expect the 2017 reimbursement rate to be lower.

Read the full story from at Wicked Local

Putting fishermen first: An open letter to Donald Trump

March 23, 2017 — In your campaign, you correctly recognized that many basic industries in the United States — ones that have created stable jobs and communities for generations — have increasingly come under siege. You identified globalization, overzealous regulation, and the past administration’s inclination to advance international policy goals at the expense of domestic jobs, as among the culprits.

Your words struck a chord among many in the commercial fishing industry, where middle class jobs have been hollowed out of the coastal communities. There are many fishing ports around the country that bear witness to this sad fact.

While your policy prescription is general, like advanced cancer treatments, the best cures may be patient-specific.

We’d like in this column to focus on infrastructure, but not infrastructure as it’s generally thought of. There are plenty of fishing vessels available for use. Many issues with fish processing are largely a function of disuse, rather than a lack of capacity. Instead, we respectfully ask you to focus on the intellectual infrastructure of fisheries management.

Among our chief complaints with the administration just past is that it was long on big plans, but short on follow-through. It’s one thing to center fisheries management policy on data-hungry ecosystem management models and complex catch share programs. It’s quite another to implement these regimes effectively.

Maybe worse than being overzealous, fisheries management in the Obama administration became over-ambitious.

A reflexive reaction might be to throw out all regulation, but that’s not the solution, either. Sustainable fisheries do produce more economic benefits. The U.S. Atlantic scallop fishery is but one example of a somewhat flexible management regime producing an ecologically stable fishery. The lean years have become less lean, and the good — even great — years more prevalent. Product quality improved. Scallopers maintained a consistent level of supply when the rest of the world couldn’t or didn’t. Marketplace rewards followed.

Also, and this may be controversial even among our clients, but starving managers of federal funds does not necessarily make them do less. Specifications need to be set each year, and much of fisheries regulation is just keeping up with what’s happening in the ocean. A lack of resources can, however, make them do what they do less well. “Bureaucratic incompetence” can become a self-fulfilling prophesy when there aren’t sufficient funds for data collection and brain power.

Read the full opinion piece at the National Fisherman

NMFS Sets 16 Percent Observer Coverage Level for NE Groundfish Sector for 2017

March 20, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The National Marine Fisheries Service announced a 16 percent at-sea monitoring coverage level target for groundfish sector trips in the Northeast for 2017.

This target coverage level is a 2 percentage point increase from the 2016 coverage level (14 percent). The target coverage level is set based on an average of at-sea monitoring data from the past 3 full groundfish fishing years, so the 2017 level is set based on data from the 2013-2015 years.

Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement. Sectors will actually pay for at-sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates. The SBRM coverage rates have not been published yet.

NMFS said the agency expects to be able to reimburse sectors for some portion of their monitoring costs but doesn’t have the information it needs to determine the reimbursement rate. The agency was able to reimburse 85 percent of at-sea monitoring costs in 2016, but expects the 2017 reimbursement rate to be lower.

Certain sector groundfish trips, those using gillnets with 10-inch or greater mesh in Southern New England and Inshore Georges Bank, are also excluded from the ASM requirement due to their low catch of groundfish species. This further reduces the portion of sector trips subject to industry-funded monitoring and better focuses monitoring resources, the agency said in a press release.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

NOAA calls for more groundfish monitoring at sea

March 16, 2017 — NOAA Fisheries will increase its target level for at-sea monitoring to 16 percent of all groundfish trips in 2017 and expects industry reimbursements to continue, but at a lower level.

The target level for at-sea coverage, based on at-sea monitoring data from the 2013-15 fishing seasons, is a 2 percent increase over the 14 percent of all groundfish trips that included at-sea observers in 2016.

NOAA Fisheries, however, said it expects fishing sectors will pay for less than the full 16 percent because coverage from another federally-mandated monitoring program will mitigate the expense being passed to the fishing industry.

“Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement,” NOAA Fisheries said. “Sectors will therefore actually pay for at-sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates, which are not yet out.”

The news that NOAA Fisheries would continue to reimburse fishermen for the expense of at-sea monitoring was surprising.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

NOAA Fisheries Announces 2017 At-Sea Monitoring Coverage Levels for Groundfish Sector Fishery

March 15, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA Fisheries announces that for fishing year 2017 the total target at-sea monitoring coverage level is 16 percent of all groundfish sector trips.

This target coverage level is a 2 percentage point increase from the 2016 coverage level (14 percent). As the target coverage level is set based on an average of at-sea monitoring data from the past 3 full groundfish fishing years, this level is set based on data from the 2013-2015 fishing years.

Federally funded observer coverage provided by the Northeast Fishery Observer Program to meet the Standardized Bycatch Reporting Methodology (SBRM) requirements will partially satisfy the 16 percent coverage requirement. Sectors will therefore actually pay for at-sea monitoring coverage on less than 16 percent of their groundfish trips, but the total will depend on the SBRM coverage rates, which are not yet out.

We expect to be able to reimburse sectors for some portion of their ASM costs. We do not yet have the information we need to determine the reimbursement rate. We were able to reimburse 85 percent of at-sea monitoring costs in 2016, but expect the 2017 reimbursement rate to be lower.

For more information, please read the Summary of Analysis Conducted to Determine At-Sea Monitoring Requirements for Multispecies Sectors FY 2017available on our website.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov