Evaluating the Effectiveness of Dockside Monitoring Using an Electronic Reporting System in the Maryland Blue Crab Fishery

Self-reporting is a common method to document harvest, but the accuracy of reported harvest is uncertain without independent methods of harvest verification.  General documentation errors, forgetfulness and intentional misreporting are common problems and can profoundly impact the accuracy of reported harvest.  As mobile accessible electronic reporting systems become more prevalent they have the potential to improve the timeliness and accuracy of self-reported harvest.  However sources of misreporting and incentives to misreport will continue unless techniques are in place to evaluate reporting accuracy and report compliance.  Independent verification techniques such as at-sea observers, dockside monitoring and dealer reporting can be implemented to establish cross-checking and auditing of self-reported data and to increase incentives for industry to provide accurate self-reported data.  The effectiveness of these techniques can also be enhanced by access to fishing information provided by electronic reporting.  An electronic harvest reporting system (FACTS ^TM) was designed and evaluated in the Maryland blue crab fishery (2012-2014).  A new process of daily reporting was implimented to facilitate verification of harvest by dockside monitoring.  The dockside monitoring program used access to fishers hails to schedule and conduct random daily harvest verification.  Results and factors effecting dockside monitoring success will be presented.