Monitoring Systems in Catch Share Management

In the Northeast multispecies (groundfish) fisheries, vessels with groundfish fishing rights were authorized to form groups and secure group shares of individual stock allowable catch limit by stock.  In FY2010 (May2010-April 2011), 17 sectors were formed to receive their shares of allowable catch limits (ACLs).  Each sector is required to monitor its own catch shares and submit both weekly summary of catch by stock and detailed trip-by-trip reports to NMFS.  Separately, NMFS establish a system to monitor the progress of sectors and overall fisheries in terms of the usage of sector shares and individual stock ACLs.   The NMFS monitoring report is also used to evaluate the accuracy of sector summary reports. 

This presentation will outline and describe the NMFS monitoring system including monitoring goal, process of establishing the system, system components, data sources, and use of monitor reports.  Samples of the reports will be shown as well.  The other two presentations by Caless and Lanning of this workshop program will cover technical methods used in this monitoring system.