Portside Bycatch and Comparative Sampling of the Atlantic Herring (Clupea harengus) Fishery for 2004-2013

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has amassed ten years of information and data from The  DMR Portside Bycatch Sampling Program of the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) fishery and other small bodied pelagics and has recently verified it against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) At-Sea Monitoring Program  on co-occurring trips.  More importantly the portside program offers a lower cost and  lower hazard solution to monitoring when compared to at-sea observations. 

     Due to the newly implemented river herring bycatch caps, potential listing of river herring as an endangered species, and the seasonal interactions with Atlantic herring, an analysis and comparison between co-occurring trips was conducted looking exclusively for significance of the presence of river herring.  This test and comparison was also useful to examine methodological differences between the at-sea and portside monitoring programs and addressing which methods could be aligned to better document bycatch of many species.

    While portside sampling doesn’t address at-sea discards, the data on small bodied pelagics is, in many ways, better than sub-sampling at sea.  Portside offers a safer and cheaper sampling platform, with zero time spent on-board fishing vessels, where labor costs and safety issues can accrue while searching for and landing fish.