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Deployment performance review of the 2016 North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program
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2017
[PDF-1.97 MB]
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Description:This report contains the analyses and findings of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division's Observer Science Committee on the efficiency and effectiveness of observer deployment following the 2016 Annual Deployment Plan (ADP). Responses to comments by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's Science and Statistical Committee from the 2015 version of this report, and recommendations to improve data quality and guide the 2018 Annual Deployment Plan are also included. In 2016, there were 15 strata to evaluate: two full coverage strata, three gear-based partial coverage strata for observers, partial and full coverage electronic monitoring (EM) strata among four time periods, and two zero-coverage strata. Observers were deployed under trip-selection on 172 full coverage vessels that fished for 4,716 trips and 365 partial coverage vessels that fished 6,654 trips total. Pre-implementation EM systems were successfully deployed onto 24 vessels that fished for 227 trips using vessel-selection. A total of 421 vessels fished 2,079 trips with no chance of being observed or monitored (zero selection strata). Coverage rates in partial coverage trip- and vessel-selection met expectations for the year. Although the pre-notification system employed for EM boats in vesselselection eliminated unnecessary deployments, there remained vessels that failed to comply with the voluntary rules of the EM strata and had no chance of being selected for monitoring. It is unknown if this resulted in biased data from the EM strata. There was no evidence of temporal bias in observer deployments. However, some spatial bias was evident in all three gear types and observer effects (different trip characteristics between observed and unobserved trips) were found in hook and line and trawl gear types. Differences between trips that delivered to a tender and those that did not were also evident in trawl and pot gear types. Tendering in the trawl pollock fishery occurred in Akutan, Sand Point and King Cove - the latter port had none of the 322 deliveries observed. This year marked the third consecutive year the observer program has not been able to deploy onto a random subset of pollock trawl deliveries due to tendering activity. We recommend that the linkages between the planned and realized trip databases be strengthened, that NMFS provide adequate funding for at least 15% trip coverage to guard against data gaps, that future ADPs set coverage rates proportional to effort among strata (and only optimize for sea-days in excess of those required for 15% coverage), and that the NMFS change its monitoring strategy for salmon bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery. [doi:10.7289/V5/TM-AFSC-358 (https://doi.org/10.7289/V5/TM-AFSC-358)]
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Content Notes:C. Faunce, J. Sullivan, S. Barbeaux, J. Cahalan, J. Gasper, S. Lowe, and R. Webster.
"July 2017."
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 41-44).
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Rights Information:Public Domain
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Compliance:Submitted
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