September 12, 2015 — The issue of at-sea monitoring seems to pervade almost every current discussion of the future viability of the Northeast groundfish industry, including the distribution of federal fishing disaster money and the ongoing battles over who will  pay for the monitoring program going forward.

NOAA Fisheries this week stepped further into that maelstrom with a largely internally generated report that focuses on cost comparisons between the current manual system of at-sea monitoring and electronic monitoring. It also released an independent review of the NOAA report.

Electronic monitoring might be a more cost-effective option. Maybe. In some cases. Depending on the fishery and the goals and design of whatever electronic monitoring program ultimately is utilized.

The NOAA report, generated with the assistance of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and other non-governmental organizations, concedes a wide array of assumptions — it is based on hypothetical Northeast multi-species and Atlantic herring and mackerel fisheries — and accepts that it is merely “a starting point for developing future [electronic monitoring] program designs.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times