EM Implementation - a View from the Front Lines

The Atlantic pelagic longline fishery for tuna, sharks, and swordfish takes place from Maine to Texas and a few ports in the Caribbean.   It is a fishery with complex rules, some 130-160 registered participants, and fish that travel long distances crossing multiple domestic and international boundaries.

 Concern over bluefin tuna inspired Amendment 7, which implemented multiple conservation measures including individual quotas for bycatch of Bluefin, and the installation of electronic monitoring (EM) equipment on approximately 135 vessels active in the fishery.  The Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Division of NOAA manages this fishery, and they contracted Saltwater Inc. to implement the use of EM for data acquisition in this fleet.     

 This presentation describes what an EM implementation of this scale requires – detailing some of the planning, logistics, system development, and communications issues involved.   We will focus specifically one area, Data Retrieval, to illustrate the many details and issues that are involved in the implementation of an EM program.