Katlian
2008-12-15 05:55:11
I was recently in Canada with a friend shopping for trollers. We couldn't figure out what all the colorful stripes were aboard all the longliners. It turns out that Canadian longliners are now on 100% electronic monitoring. They hold each fish caught infront of the lines so the camera can record it's stats before it is brought onboard. They had an additional camera in the trolling pit. The pit camera was triggered by a sensor mounted on the gurdies. They could not run gear without the camera turning on. After much bemoaning of "the man", we agreed that if this kind of regulation is required to keep a fishery legal, it was cheaper than having a live observer with you all the time.
I think that a similar system can be used to accurately account for the amount of fish harvested by the charter fishing sector in Alaska. The voluntary log book program, an understaffed survey crew, and an after thought telephone survey has not produced data that can be fully relied on.
Alaska already has laws in place requiring exterior labels on all fish boxes leaving the state at airports. With a small investment in electronic recording equipement, the data could be collected to track all charter exports. Imagine if every single wetlock leaving the state was actually counted. I feel that the true harvest numbers would be much larger than the current estimate provided. If their actual catch is considered and reflected in policy management, I know the ocean is big enough for us all.
slr
image of measurement strips
image of camera on poles