Alaska Trawl Harvesters Working to Expand Electronic Pelagic Pollock Fishery Monitoring
Gulf of Alaska (GOA) trawl fishermen are working to expand electronic monitoring from the pelagic pollock fishery to the Central Gulf of Alaska rockfish program.
Using electronic monitoring and other technology to provide cost-effective monitoring and better prohibited species catch accounting has always been a goal for the trawl catcher vessels, Chelsae Radell, assistant director of the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank in Kodiak, noted in the June 30 edition of the online publication EM4Fish.
In 2007 and 2008, Alaska Groundfish Data Bank (AGDB) received exempted fishing permits (EFPs) to test the use of electronic monitoring to quantify at-sea halibut discards in the GOA rockfish program.
While the EFPs showed that electronic monitoring was possible, limitations in its use at the time mea...
