U.S. National Observer Program and Regional Electronic Technology Implementation Plans for 2016 -2018

NOAA Fisheries has been deploying human observers to collect fisheries data since 1972. Annually, over 79,000 days at sea in 48 fisheries are monitored. The National Observer Program was formed in 1999 to support six regional observer programs: Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest, Alaska, and Pacific Islands.  It ensures that fishery dependent data on effort, bycatch, biological sampling, etc. are collected to provide science centers and fishery management councils with information necessary to manage marine resources.  Key areas of support include: policy, budgets, safety, bycatch, and electronic technologies. NOAA Fisheries has supported over 30 pilot projects that experiment with new technologies; several pilot programs are transitioning to implementation between 2016 and 2018. While electronic reporting is more widely implemented in fishery-dependent data collections, electronic monitoring (EM) has been implemented in only three fishery management plans for five fisheries, primarily for compliance monitoring. Efforts are underway to quantify the costs of implementing EM programs and inventory all EM pilot projects and funds invested to date. White papers on best practices, cost accounting, and cost allocations between NOAA Fisheries and the fishing industry will contribute to national policies and six regional electronic technologies implementations plans.