Electronic Monitoring in Pacific Groundfish Fisheries-Moving Forward

On the West Coast, there is a great industry-government collaboration underlying the drive to implement electronic monitoring in the Pacific Groundfish Trawl Catch Shares Fishery.    Pilot projects are underway that we hope will lead to the implementation of video monitoring in the fixed gear, bottom trawl, and mid-water trawl fisheries.  These pilot projects are being done under a series of Exempted Fishing Permits (EFPs).  EFPs allow activities that normally are precluded by regulation--in this case, the requirement of 100% observer coverage at-sea and 100% monitoring of fisheries offloads onshore.   The Pacific Groundfish fishery is a multispecies fishery that includes species that are hard to distinguish, rockfish  that are overfished and under rebuilding plans, and an individual vessel accounting system where each vessel has its individual quota.  Therefore, monitoring discards and obtaining accurate data for use in the vessel accounting system is important.  Reducing monitoring costs is important to the industry as the industry is footing most of the observer/monitor bill.    The presentation will address the following questions:  How can pilot projects help to advance electronic monitoring?  What are the characteristics of a pilot that moves the ball down the field?