Electronic Monitoring on Deck
for Fall 2018

by Laurie Schreiber

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—The New England Fishery Management Council’s (NEFMC) Northeast Industry-Funded Monitoring Omnibus Amendment is expected to be implement by fall 2018, with substantial costs expected to fall to midwater trawl fishermen in the herring and mackerel fisheries.

At NEFMC’s Jan. 30 meeting, NEFMC member Peter Kendall asked for a detailed cost analysis of the program, and others requested specifics on who would run the program and how much of the video collected through the electronic monitoring program would be regularly reviewed.

The Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) conducted an electronic monitoring (EM) project from August 2016 to January 2018 aboard 11 midwater trawlers in the herring and mackerel fisheries, according to a NEFMC press release. An estimated 1,000 hours of EM footage was collected on 126 herring trips, and 32 of those trips were also monitored by at-sea observers. The project was designed to evaluate whether or not EM is an effective tool for tracking catch, discards, and slippage events. “Slippage” refers to catch discarded prior to sampling by an observer.

The project was conducted with Saltwater Inc. Based in Anchorage, Alaska, the company collects data on fisheries and oceans for government agencies, research organizations, and fishermen; designs and implements monitoring programs; and uses new technologies for data collection, according to its website. The company provided and installed EM units on the vessels. The project was devised to help inform the amendment’s implementation and the development of future EM programs.

According to information from NEFMC, EM consists of multiple cameras, control box, monitor, GPS receiver, and two sensors (hydraulic and rotation). Cameras begin recording when the sensors are triggered by the drum rotation or hydraulic pressure transducer; cameras target the vessel’s deck and waters surrounding the vessel, including where the cod-end of the net is pulled to the surface and pumping occurs. The system does not record audio. Data will be the property of the government.

During the project, all video was audited, with an estimate 1,000 hours put into the auditing process. NEFMC members wanted to know if the auditing rate will remain at 100 percent, or would be less. According to NEFMC member Michael Sissenwine, NEFMC’s habitat committee recommended a 50 percent review in the future.

“The application of 100 percent in the experiment is outstanding because that gives you a database upon which you can define a proper rate in the future,” said Sissenwine, who added that the 50 percent figure was considered a balance between the cost of the program and the value of the information. “Video review is one of the main cost drivers for EM, and it’s a cost borne by the industry.” Sissenwine added that the NEFSC is studying the question of what an appropriate review rate would be.

“I’m concerned about 50 percent in the future,” he continued. “I would hope there will be an analysis that will look at some design criteria for what the appropriate rate . My understanding is that we’re doing this to detect violations. So the appropriate rate will be a function of the frequency of violations and the penalty of misreporting. So I think there’s a basis to have some more logical or definite discussion about what the right sampling rate for the videos should be in order to achieve our objective.”

NEFMC took final action on the amendment at its April 2017 meeting, and the proposed rule was sent to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for review. NEFMC plans to consider the amendment again at its April meeting.

NMFS will present a report on the experimental project to NEFMC at its April meeting.

According to NEFMC, the goals of the electronic monitoring program are to monitor catch retention, identify discard, and categorize types of slippage events. The purpose is to determine accurate estimates of both retained and discarded catch and accurate catch estimates for incidental species with catch caps, like haddock and river herring.