Applying Sampling Solutions to the Challenges of Collecting Data on Board Commercial Fishing Vessels

North Pacific Observers face significant challenges collecting fisheries data aboard commercial fishing vessels.  These data are crucial to the management of Federal fisheries in Alaska.  Observers must work within the normal daily operations of vessels and minimize interference with fishing and processing efforts.  The Bering Sea Pollock fishery has low bycatch rates.  In low diversity catches, smaller species composition samples make it less certain that bycatch species occurring in low numbers are represented.

In 1998, Bering Sea factory trawlers began using flowscales to provide precise catch weights essential to catch accounting and fisheries management.  The North Pacific Observer Program saw the adoption of flowscales as an opportunity to develop sampling methods that increased sample sizes in low diversity hauls. These larger samples improved access to rare bycatch events. When two predominant species occur in the catch, flowscales are used to determine sample size.  All non-predominant bycatch can be weighed by the observer and random subsamples are collected to determine the proportion of each predominant species.  Examples of how these innovative sampling techniques are applied on vessels using flowscales will be demonstrated during the presentation. These sampling techniques have made data collection aboard these vessels more efficient and representative.