Industry-funded Monitoring
Costs Explored

by Laurie Schreiber

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – At its January meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) moved forward options for its draft Industry-Funded Monitoring Omnibus Amendment, particularly addressing options for tracking catch and bycatch in the Atlantic herring fishery.

The amendment is expected to authorize portside sampling and electronic monitoring across all fisheries, and includes various monitoring plans, including at-sea observer coverage, specific to the Atlantic herring fishery.

Options under consideration for the herring fishery include requiring third-party at-sea monitoring on category A/B herring vessels to document all fish not retained onboard the vessel, including detailed accounting of full and partial slippage events. In year one, levels of coverage under consideration include 100 percent, 75 percent, and 50 percent of all trips. This option includes portside sampling and electronic monitoring to be phased in. The third-party at-sea monitor coverage target would be adjusted as portside sampling/electronic monitoring programs are implemented.

In addition, NEFMC agreed to include an alternative to have 100 percent observer coverage on fishing in the current year-round groundfish closed areas.

According to NEFMC, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) would pay for monitoring costs associated with training, data processing and operations, at an estimated annual cost of $5.1 million. The industry would pay for salary and per diem deployments of observers, equipment, cost of cancellation and other costs, at an estimated $818 per day.

Costs to fishermen for an observer per Category A and B trip are calculated as follows:

• Single midwater trawl vessels, $2,400, for a 10.6 percent reduction in net revenue;

• Paired midwater trawl, $2,500, 11.6 percent reduction;

• Purse seine, $700, 5.3 percent reduction;

• Small mesh bottom trawl, $1,600, 18.5 percent reduction.

“It’s important to get back to what we were trying to accomplish in Amendment 5, which was 100 percent monitoring,” said NEFMC member Doug Grout. “But there are cost-effective ways to do it” involving a combination of all three types of monitoring programs.

Meghan Lapp, representing Seafreeze Ltd., said she had concerns about the economic analysis and its per-trip estimate of costs at $2,400 for a single midwater trawl.

“That assumes an average three-day trip,” said Lapp, who pointed out Seafreeze trips run from seven to 16 days. “That increases our observer costs significantly. I don’t see an analysis of that.”

“The idea of what where you’re trying to do is the right thinking,” Northeast Fisheries Science Center science and research director Bill Karp told the NEFMC. Nevertheless, Karp cautioned, “the devil is in the details” when it comes to the practicability of working with a third party. “In the event this moves forward, there are going to be some quite challenging hurdles to overcome.”