Implementing a Daily Electronic Harvest Reporting System for Maryland's Commercial Fisheries: Lessons Learned from the Striped Bass Pilot

Maryland fishery managers and stakeholders are working together to build and implement a “one-stop” daily electronic harvest reporting system (FACTS^TM) for Maryland’s commercial fisheries to improve harvest accountability and provide more timely and accurate data for decision making.  It was determined that implementation of such a system is crucial to support progress toward the sustainable management of Chesapeake Bay fisheries.  To reach this goal, the use of mobile technology was tested during a pilot with the blue crab industry (2012-2014).  It was determined that watermen were able to report to an electronic system daily using a mobile website on their smartphone/tablet or by calling a call center or texting the information.  With the means for daily electronic reporting realized, the system is now being built incrementally to include all of Maryland’s commercial fisheries, beginning with the striped bass fishery because of its complex quota management requirements.  To identify potential implementation challenges, the system was piloted with watermen from the striped bass industry from November 2014 to March 2015.  We will present results from this pilot and share lessons learned concerning the implementation of a daily electronic harvest reporting system and discuss strategies for integrating all of Maryland’s commercial fisheries.