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Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data (2000)

Chapter: Findings and Recommendations

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Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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4

Findings and Recommendations

Significant advances have been made in the United States in recent years in the collection, management, and use of data related to marine fisheries. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the states have experimented with new technologies, such as vessel monitoring systems, electronic logbooks, acoustic fish detection, the Global Positioning System (GPS), electronic zebra code scanners, and modern tagging methods. Despite these advances, traditional fisheryindependent surveys seem to be underfunded in some areas, commercial data are underused, and both may sometimes not be of high enough quality for their intended uses.

Congress has responded to the need for surveys by providing funds for new and more capable fishery research vessels, but budgets for using survey vessels are under continual pressure. Fisheries data collection, management, and use will suffer without provision of adequate, sustained funding from Congress that is applied appropriately by the Department of Commerce (DOC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NMFS. The committee did not analyze the fishery data collection budgets of the states or NMFS, so it cannot determine whether they need budget increases or could use their existing resources more efficiently. It does seem clear, however, that NMFS is being asked to provide more data to diverse groups for a variety of purposes.

Major advances in fisheries data management could be achieved by continuing the use of new computing and communication capabilities and increasing integration and standardization of data management on regional and national bases. NMFS and its state and regional partners on the U.S. Atlantic coast are implementing the Atlantic Cooperative Coastal Statistics Program (ACCSP), which seems to be a good model for regional data management systems because of its emphasis on data standardization and full information access by the program partners, including federal and state agencies, and participation by interstate commissions, commercial and recreational fishermen, and environmental advocates. At the direction of Congress, NMFS developed a plan for a nationwide Fisheries Information System, an umbrella data management system that will incorporate existing and planned regional systems and help them coordinate data standardization and access. Such new data management systems have become even more impor-

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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tant as the most recent reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act added new requirements for identification of essential fish habitat.

The committee drew on input from its public meetings, published documents, and its own analyses and discussions to develop a series of findings and recommendations that (1) analyze the 1999 summer flounder stock assessment and provide advice to NMFS about ways to improve these assessments (see Appendix D) and (2) identify more general data issues needing attention. Many of the recommendations related to the summer flounder assessments should be applied more broadly in other U.S. fisheries; relevant examples will be provided later in this chapter. Improvements in the credibility of NMFS data collection and stock assessment procedures could be achieved if the following recommendations were implemented. Some of the major issues that emerged during the committee's work were the timing of data availability to managers and fishermen and the waste of the great potential of commercial and recreational fishermen as data collection partners.

Delay in the availability of data was a major theme of the committee 's discussions. In particular, fishery-dependent data, especially commercial and recreational landings data, must be available on time scales that match needed management actions. The degree of timeliness needed varies depending on the type of data and the management system used. For example, for management based on total allowable catch, total catch data and data on discards in other fisheries should be available soon enough to allow closing a season early. Presently, most commercial data meet this criterion, but recreational catch data generally are not available on this time scale. Management with closed areas is best accomplished with real-time information about vessel location. The expansion of the recreational share of many fisheries has exacerbated the data timeliness problem because data collection systems for recreational fisheries are not designed to make data available in a usable form quickly, so that in-season1 management of most recreational fisheries is presently not possible.

State and federal budget limitations will probably always constrain fishery-independent surveys. The portion of the NMFS budget for research and data collection has been diminished in recent years from budget cuts and “earmarks,” without positive adjustments to base budget that would offset personnel costs and other costs increased by inflation. Commercial and recreational fishermen are a large potential source of data about the fish stocks they exploit. The committee believes, therefore, that it is imperative for NMFS and the councils to improve the quality of data available from commercial and recreational fisheries.

NMFS finds it difficult to use certain forms of commercial data, especially measures of fishing effort and CPUE, because of valid concerns about the data's usefulness; the committee believes these concerns could be better addressed through constructive engagement with the commercial sector. Improvements in data quality will occur only if NMFS and industry work cooperatively to create more effective and efficient data collection and management systems and create an environment that fosters the availability of accurate, precise data with adequate protection of privacy and confidentiality. Other stakeholders, such as environmental advocates and ceremonial and subsistence users should also participate in data collection and management so that their knowledge and interests are considered. Responsibility for the current failure to use certain kinds of fishery-dependent data (e.g., commercial catch rates and logbook data such as the landings by species and locations of catch) for stock assessments can be ascribed to both NMFS and the industry, and both need to make good-faith efforts to work together to improve data availability, thereby fostering improvements in management and sustained fisheries yields.

1  

In-season management refers to changes in the season length based on a sector's actual catch in relation to the total allowable catch allotted to that sector.

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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IMPROVING DATA COLLECTION

Matching Data Collection Costs to Benefits from Fisheries

Findings: In an ideal world, sufficient resources would always be available for data collection, but resources have never been adequate to meet this ideal and NMFS has not been able to obtain satisfactory increases in its data collection budget. The committee could find no existing analyses of the costs and benefits of data collection and management for specific fisheries, particularly of the ratio of marginal costs and marginal benefits for each additional dollar spent on data collection. The potential value of management advice (e.g., in terms of decreasing costs or increasing the long-term potential yield of fisheries) may not be related to the frequency and cost of surveys and other data collection and management systems (e.g., logbook programs, port sampling, observer programs). As a consequence, it is not clear whether allocation of data collection resources is based on objective analysis, or instead reflects regional tradition, bureaucratic inertia, or political incentives. Mismatches between costs and benefits may exist because social and economic factors are not accounted for properly. A comparison of data collection and management costs and the marginal benefit of such expenditures for fisheries management would allow NMFS to allocate its data collection effort more effectively within and across fisheries.

Data collection could be made more costeffective through changes in the allocation of survey effort, collection of commercial and recreational catch and effort statistics, and optimization of regional monitoring through observer programs and vessel monitoring systems.

NOAA recognized the need for such a costbenefit approach in its 1998 Fisheries Data Acquisition Plan:

Because fiscal resources for fisheries management are not unlimited, a hierarchical system of priorities must be set to ensure that the most important data needs are met. First priority must go to endangered or threatened species, [examples given include marine mammals and overfished stocks]

Another consideration when setting priorities is the value of the stock or species to the U.S. economy. However, the ecological importance of a species is also considered. Surveys may be conducted on a species of little economic value, but is an important forage fish for, or predator on other stocks, or is a bycatch species (NOAA, 1998).

The status of fisheries in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone as national public-trust resources suggests that a nationwide prioritization of expenditures would be desirable. Such an exercise would make costs and benefits more explicit and would give NMFS a more objective basis for changing data collection intensity or requesting additional resources. Implementation of a costbenefit approach to data collection and management will be hindered if sufficient resources are not appropriated by Congress for necessary analysis and implementation.

Recommendations: NMFS should allocate its data collection resources by some rational plan between its own data collection efforts and the efforts of others. Data from non-NMFS sources will require special attention to such matters as data quality and coverage (by fishery, species, times of year, and location). Reallocation of data collection resources may not result in a net cost savings.

Congress should encourage NMFS to conduct a nationwide analysis of the costs and benefits of optimizing data collected for each fishery, including the value of fish stocks for commercial, recreational, and non-consumptive uses. Analyses should include appropriate multipliers to capture benefits of recreational and commercial fisheries to the broader economy (e.g., bait and tackle purchases, boat rentals, sales by fish dealers and retailers), as well as ecosystem benefits. For example, a table such as the following might be constructed:

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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Species or Species Complex

Potential Value of Harvest and Other Benefits

Spawning Stock Biomass

Long-Term Potential Yield

Importance of Species in Food Web/ Endangered Status

Precision Needed

Estimated Data Collection Cost (itemize by data source)

Such a table could be an extension of the information on recent average yield, current potential yield, and long-term potential yield given in the NMFS Our Living Oceans reports (e.g., NMFS, 1999). The primary intent of such an analysis would be to guide the federal investment in fisheries data collection and management. States could use a similar approach to evaluate the costs and benefits for individual fisheries at the state level, which may be only partially related to federal costs and benefits.

An interim measure could be to try the approach for one major fishery on each coast or within each council region. The key point is that benefits and costs of fisheries data collection and management need to be measured in common scales across fisheries, whether in dollars or in other scales that can be used to quantify noneconomic costs and benefits. Quantifying environmental benefits of data collection may be difficult and proxy measures may be needed so that environmental benefits can be included in the total benefit of data collection. Examples of proxies might include the standing stock biomass and information about the importance of a species in the food web. Such an approach should consider the potential value of recovery of an overfished stock. This type of analysis would allow more informed decisions to be made about which fisheries merit increased funding for data collection and management.

As part of the recommended cost-benefit analysis, the precision of each data source should be determined, because it will not be cost-effective to measure one input (e.g., commercial or survey CPUE) with great precision, while only measuring another input approximately, because the precision of the output (e.g., estimated fishing mortality) and the management that is possible will often reflect the precision of the most imprecise input.

An analysis of the costs and benefits of data collection and management should also identify areas of research needed to make better cost-benefit decisions. The federal government may be subsidizing some fisheries by spending more on data collection and management than the fisheries are worth to the nation. When this is the case, the government could decide that such expenditures are not cost-effective. If this led to cut-backs in data collection and required more conservative management, industry should have the option to pay for data collection that might (or might not) allow higher TACs. Otherwise, where data collection and management costs exceed benefits to a specific fishery, less data-intensive management (reflecting perhaps more biologically conservative actions) should be considered by the regional fishery management councils. This review should be updated every 5 to 10 years to account for changes in the value of the fisheries, the development of more cost-effective techniques for data collection and management, and improved understanding of specific fisheries.

An important contribution to this cost-benefit analysis would be quantification of the costs and benefits of different data sources for different species. This information would allow determination of the appropriate mix of data types and sources, for example, sampling of landings, observers, vessel monitoring systems (VMSs), logbooks, and dealer reports. The appropriate mix

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

may be different for each fishery, but VMSs may be particularly useful in fisheries managed with closed areas, observers are useful for all fisheries in which bycatch is a problem, and logbooks are useful in all areas.

The committee's recommendations assume that funding will constrain most fishery-independent surveys to groups of species, although additional funding would allow NMFS to examine how well its surveys characterize individual species within multispecies complexes. Surveys almost always focus on groups of species because NMFS does not have the resources (financial, personnel, ships) to optimize surveys for individual species, and the value of most individual species does not merit such an approach. This creates a dilemma: each survey will be sub-optimal for any particular species. How can this situation be remedied in the context of limited resources? If Congress, NMFS, the councils, industry, or environmental advocacy groups believe that better data are needed for any single species, (1) funding could be shifted from other sources or new funding appropriated, (2) fishermen who target the species could be asked to contribute to directed surveys of it (through taxes or in-kind contributions of services in helping with the surveys), (3) NMFS could find new ways to improve commercial and recreational data and use these data more extensively in stock assessments, and/or (4) new methods and technologies, such as acoustic surveys or adaptive sampling, could be implemented.

Greater Use of Fishery-Dependent Data

Findings: Data collected from scientifically designed surveys are often contrasted with that collected from fishery operations. In fact, both have benefits and drawbacks as data gathering mechanisms. Generally, greater control is exercised over the gathering of data from scientific surveys. For a scientific survey, a full statistical design can be implemented, accounting for potential sampling biases. Unfortunately, the cost per sample is large, often resulting in a low sample size, thereby reducing the precision. Loss of precision leads to uncertainty through greater variation in the estimates.

The Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS) is an example of a scientifically-designed survey that can provide sufficient precision for most modes at the regional level for the recreational component of many fisheries. However, it estimates only what is caught by anglers and does not monitor the fish population directly. Preferences of anglers will motivate them to fish in a manner that biases the catch toward their desired species and fish size.

Data from commercial fishery operations (e.g., from logbooks, observers, port sampling) do not represent random samples of the fish population. Rather, such data reflect the characteristics of those portions of the fish population that are subject to harvest. Cost per fish sampled is low relative to the cost of a survey and data available from intensive fisheries resemble a census more than a survey sample. Thus, the effective sample size for commercial data may be orders of magnitude larger than what may be available via surveys. The fact that it is a fishery-directed harvest in which fishermen are pursuing their own goals, however, means that only a portion of the fish population may be targeted and that targeting may change with time. As a consequence, data from fishery operations present a biased perspective of the population (e.g., fisheries target high concentrations of adult fish), and perhaps more importantly, this bias may change over time and not correlate well with actual fish abundance. Part of the bias arises from not understanding how social and economic factors affect when, where, and how fish are harvested. The lack of control over fishery targeting practices (i.e., lack of structured sampling design applied to the population) makes it necessary to account for potential biases when such data are used in stock assessment procedures.

The committee believes that it would be more cost-effective to find ways to improve the collection and use of data from commercial and recreational fisheries in stock assessments than for the

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

government to conduct vastly increased surveys, although there are areas in which surveys need to be increased. Data obtained from commercial and recreational fisheries can be a valuable resource if their inherent biases can be understood and accounted for in the assessment process. The value of commercial data is not limited to population assessment alone. These data may also prove useful for tracking ecosystem changes or to monitor the effects of fishing regulations over time. Such effects are not always apparent from fishery-independent surveys, due to their directed objectives and cost restrictions.

Recommendations: NMFS and the councils should invest in finding ways to improve data from commercial and recreational fisheries to make these data more useful in stock assessments, rather than establishing new fishery-independent surveys. Existing surveys should be made more cost-effective by incorporating new technologies and management methods. In implementing this recommendation, NMFS will need to understand, account for, and reduce (if possible) the inherent biases in fishery-dependent data of different types. Use of fishery-dependent data also should be guided by the evaluation of costs and benefits recommended earlier.

Minimizing and Accounting for “Data Fouling”

Findings: Data fouling is a serious problem that can result from specific types of management. Also, any change in management regime can cause data fouling by changing the spatial and temporal extent of fishing discard rates, misreporting, and other factors. For example, trip limits established in the summer flounder fishery changed the areas targeted by commercial fishermen.

Recommendations: Assessments should take into account the effect of regulations on how fishermen conduct their operations and how this could change the composition of fish caught and data available for stock assessments and other purposes. More fundamentally, councils should explicitly consider the effects that proposed regulations and management regimes would have on data quality and should attempt to design systems that will achieve their management goals with as little data fouling as possible, for example, by implementing or expanding observer programs. NOAA (e.g., NMFS, Sea Grant) should support both internal and external research to identify and evaluate incentives for accurate reporting and disincentives for misreporting and to study the effects of regulations on the industry. In particular, NMFS should engage more social scientists to help build the knowledge base needed to move management beyond trial-and-error to a more predictive capability. Emphasis should be on the relationship between different types of regulatory approaches and fishermen's attitudes and behaviors toward fish harvesting and data reporting.

Fishery-Independent Surveys
Survey Design
Precision of Survey Data

Findings: Once in place, long-term fisheries survey programs are rarely evaluated to determine whether the survey design provides accurate and precise estimates of abundance or relative changes in abundance.

Precision is a function of survey design and sampling intensity and reflects the uncertainty associated with the survey indices. Precision can be evaluated for the NMFS surveys by examining the current allocations of survey sampling stations among statistically designed strata to determine whether they correspond to the current spatial distribution of the target species and to judge if the allocation of samples to strata increases the precision of the overall abundance estimates. Methods for evaluating the precision of stratified random surveys are available in the statistics literature and have been used to evaluate similar fishery surveys (Smith and Gavaris,

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

1993; Smith, 1996; see Appendix C for summer flounder example). Although this kind of evaluation may be complicated by the multispecies aspect of surveys such as those conducted for New England groundfish, it is useful to evaluate the survey design for each species to determine whether the existing design is a reasonable compromise for the mix of species.

Reallocation of survey effort among sampling strata is a useful method for refining surveys as priorities change. NMFS has employed this approach well in the past to improve the level of information gained from its surveys. However, many of the strata in the 1995 fall New England groundfish survey and the deep strata for the 1995 spring groundfish survey contain only one sample per stratum. When strata contain only one sample, variance is inestimable, except by extrapolation from other areas.

Recommendations: The statistical precision of each NMFS survey should be evaluated. Estimates of the maximum expected precision given the current number of tows should be calculated and used to evaluate the statistical power of the survey to detect changes in abundance over time. The gains, or potential gains, from better survey designs, or an increase in sampling intensity, should be evaluated in relation to the assessments in which the data are used. An increase in the precision of state surveys might also be achieved if similar analyses were applied to them.

NMFS should periodically review whether sampling effort should be reallocated, even when the overall objectives of the survey stay the same. For example, if the range of the species expands to offshore areas, NMFS may need to sample these areas more heavily. In the case of the summer flounder, this type of change was made, but user groups, particularly fishermen, did not seem to know the extent of the survey expansion and the results of the changes, both in terms of raw data and assessment results. In relative abundance plots, the symbols denoting abundance at each survey station should identify the location of survey stations where there was zero catch. Small changes like this could greatly enhance communication.

Appropriate statistical design should always include more than one tow per stratum. If this is not a feature of an existing sampling design or extra stations cannot be occupied during the execution of a survey, strata should be redefined before the survey or combined for analysis if the number of tows becomes limited during the survey. 2 In general, surveys should be cost effective, statistically well designed, conducted frequently enough to detect significant trends in abundance, and take into consideration the biology of the species. Standardization of survey methods within management units to meet these needs should increase economic efficiency, quality control, and comparability of data. Standardizing within management units may be necessary, but flexibility across species and management regions is needed to address the diversity of issues and environments observed in marine systems.

State surveys apply a great deal of sampling effort, which is often allocated in relatively few tows per stratum each month, several different months each year. For many states the monthly surveys seem individually inadequate to develop precise estimates of abundance. Combining these surveys across months may also be inappropriate if a species is seasonally migratory and will change distribution among strata over the several months of survey effort. States should determine whether consolidating all their survey effort into a single annual survey might yield much more information than monthly surveys. Such analysis and coordination could be undertaken under the auspices of the interstate marine fisheries commissions.

Accuracy of Survey Data: Frequency and Spatial Extent of Surveys

Findings: The frequency of NMFS surveys varies from stock to stock and region to region. For

2  

Strata may differ by species and year to year, so post hoc combination of strata is more appropriate than combining strata in the sampling phase.

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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example, there are two general trawl surveys per year, plus the winter flatfish survey, on the U.S. East Coast. Other surveys (e.g., West Coast Continental Shelf groundfish) are conducted once every three years (see Table 3-3). Many federal surveys (the Atlantic Coast is an exception) do not provide information about seasonal distribution because they are conducted only annually or less frequently. The seasonal distribution of a species may be important to monitor in terms of how it influences catch rate for both survey and fishing vessels and in terms of how vulnerable different components of the stock are at different times of the year. Infrequency of surveys may hinder management, especially for fully exploited fisheries and for fish stocks whose dynamics change significantly from year to year. NRC (1998a) found that the single most important factor in achieving accurate results using any stock assessment model is an accurate indicator of relative abundance over time. Where vessel time is limited, surveys with twice the effort every second year—or thrice the effort every third year—may lead to more reliable assessments than annual surveys. Sometimes annual surveys may be the best option, but not universally. It is possible that the biology of a species complex, the health of its stocks, or the management approaches being used would not require an annual survey, particularly if good fishery-dependent data were available and the fishery were not in a situation in which recruits make up a significant portion of the biomass.

Recommendations: The NMFS examination of the costs and benefits of data collection should include the frequency and timing of surveys in each region, with consideration of factors such as the biology of the managed species, state of the stocks, the current and potential economic value of the species, and the availability of other accurate indices of trend (e.g., commercial CPUE). NMFS should report their findings to Congress to help members of Congress understand subsequent realignments of survey activity that may be worked out between NMFS and the regional councils. In addition, NMFS should attempt to improve the quality of commercial and recreational data to the point that they could substitute for some survey data.

Findings: The accuracy of survey data is mainly a function of sampling over a stock's entire geographic range and adequate sampling of all age and size classes. Distributions of fish over time and space and at different life stages are important considerations in designing the spatial extent of surveys. As noted by NRC (1998a), surveys should consider that stocks may shift over time due to regime shifts and other environmental changes.

For some stocks, such as summer flounder, it is not clear in available documentation that the surveys cover the entire range of the stock or adequately account for seasonal movement. For example, catch numbers of summer flounder in the winter surveys increased all the way to the edge of the survey (at the continental shelf edge) in some areas. NMFS added stations along the shelf edge for the winter survey (as weather permits), in response to industry concerns. The assumption in the subsequent analysis was that there were no significant concentrations of fish beyond the survey zone. Another example of a survey that may not sample a stock's entire range is for Greenland halibut (turbot) in the Bering Sea. Turbot is primarily a deep-slope species, yet no information is available regarding its abundance in its prime habitat because the triennial slope survey does not sample deep enough.

The range of a stock can be monitored through the spatial distribution of abundance indices in the surveys and the locations of commercial or recreational catches. Using fishery activity to detect changes in a species range may not be effective, however, if management is changed in such a way that fishing time or place are restricted (e.g., trip limits for summer flounder reduce fishing activities far from port).

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

Recommendations: NMFS should ensure that the geographic ranges of its surveys cover the geographic ranges of each species managed. In particular, the spatial extent of surveys should be based on good evidence that the ranges of the target species included in the survey have been reached, using objective threshold criteria for deciding when the range has been covered sufficiently.

Information about the geographic extent of surveys and commercial catches should be shared with managers and stakeholders in an appropriate forum. The historic locations of summer flounder, as determined by catches from fishing activities or exploratory surveys in winter, need to be analyzed to evaluate the extent of the stock area with respect to existing strata boundaries. Although this information may already be available in various forms, it needs to be drawn together and presented in a form accessible to the public, to either correct misperceptions of the industry or initiate action to improve the sampling if industry concerns are warranted. NMFS should use information provided by commercial (e.g., logbooks) and recreational fishermen regarding geographic locations of stocks (e.g., summary plots of commercial or recreational harvest locations), keeping in mind that if regulations limit the places in which it is legal or cost effective for fishermen to fish, the spatial distribution of catches may not indicate where fish are actually to be found. NMFS can consult with fishermen by presenting planned survey locations to them. All user groups should watch for patterns in fisheries data that may appear to be associated with poor spatial coverage (i.e., seeing few large fish in the catch) and could indicate other issues of concern, such as underreporting of discards or unaccounted-for migrations.

The existence of separate stocks should be examined and, if found, their significance should be determined. Data to differentiate among stocks should include information collected from tagging studies, characterizations of parasitic fauna, genetic studies, recruitment patterns, and growth rates (NRC, 1994a). Stock identifications should recognize that unit stock concepts are defined not only by genetic uniqueness, but also by the degree to which stocks differ in local recruitment characteristics, feeding and spawning ground fidelity, growth patterns, and other lifehistory characteristics. Survey data, as well as fishery-dependent data, may need to be collected at a finer scale than presently to manage such stocks separately, but the added costs of more detailed data should be evaluated against the additional benefits that would result.

Essential Fish Habitat Data

Findings: A dramatic increase in information on essential fish habitats is likely to result from the emphasis on this matter in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Although this information is being gathered principally to identify habitats critical to various life history stages of important marine species, the result will be a compendium of information that can be used more broadly to serve the needs of fisheries assessment and management. For example, knowledge of the distribution of favorable habitats for adult fish can be used to design more appropriate sampling strata, leading to increases in precision in population estimates. As another example, key habitats for eggs, larvae, and juveniles can be used to identify areas for more effectively monitoring year-class strength, leading to better short- and long-term projections of population trends.

Recommendations: Information on essential fish habitat should be collected and managed in the context of the broader needs of fisheries science, assessment, and management. Stock assessment scientists, fishery managers, and fishery ecologists should work together in setting objectives for collecting data related to essential fish habitat, and in establishing a means of managing and accessing these data. This latter goal should be developed in parallel with ongoing efforts that focus on more traditional data management. An important aspect of managing data related to essential fish habitat is to ensure that the format

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

and content of the data conforms to other federal oceanographic data in a spatial and temporal framework.

Sampling Gear and Methods

Findings: The use of gear standardized over time is important for maintaining consistent measures of relative abundance. Surveys are generally designed to yield estimates of abundance that can be related to estimates based on catches with the same gear in previous years.

Commercial fishermen are constantly updating their gear and methods and try to fish in areas where they can maximize their profits. A common complaint by fishermen about surveys is that NMFS uses outdated gear, inefficient fishing methods, and random or set stations, which fishermen believe biases the species and size compositions of survey catches in ways that reduce the TAC. In some cases, commercial fishermen have been able to demonstrate that survey gear has not been used correctly, preventing the determination of even relative abundance, for example, in a West Coast fishery (Lauth et al., 1998).

Fishery-independent surveys for summer flounder and other groundfish in the Northeast region use 30-minute tows to increase the tows per station and increase precision, whereas commercial fishermen often tow their trawl nets for 3 hours or longer. Fishermen report that longer tows allow them to catch large fish that are hard to tire with shorter survey tows. Fishermen who attended the committee's meetings were unsure about what gear was used in Northeast Fishery Science Center's summer flounder surveys, but doubted whether the gear would sample summer flounder in an unbiased manner, given the tow duration.

Most U.S. surveys are conducted using bottom trawls, so mid-water and surface-dwelling fish species are undersampled. Hydroacoustic and other remote sensing methods are not commonly used for U.S. fishery assessments, with a prominent exception being the hydroacoustic surveys used to assess spawning aggregations of Alaskan pollock and Pacific whiting (e.g., Traynor, 1997). Acoustic methods do not work for flatfish because these methods have difficulty distinguishing fish from seafloor, but these methods can greatly extend survey capabilities for midwater fish.

Recommendations: When survey gear is outdated, has unstable performance or is hard to set up correctly, effort should be directed at improving the gear and providing some level of cross-calibration so the value of historic data is maintained. Key issues in gear selection include credibility of results as well as bias in sampling and sample-to-sample variability. If use of modern gear and methods could decrease bias and variability without seriously compromising survey data time series, NMFS should consider updating its gear and changing survey methods to make them more similar to current practice in the fishing industry. If changes are made, however, they should be done with appropriate parallel use of old and new gear for as long as necessary to provide adjustment factors for historic data.

NMFS should consider hiring commercial fishermen to participate in survey cruises to see how sampling gear is used and where surveys are conducted. Conversely, fishermen should acknowledge that even if survey gear is somewhat antiquated, as long as it operates as it was intended, it may still provide an adequate index of relative abundance.

NMFS should document and communicate information to stakeholders about the gear and methods (such as tow duration) used in its surveys, as well as an evaluation of the gear's efficiency at capturing different species. This is particularly important for summer flounder because the committee is unsure if roller gear, whether 6 inches or 36 inches, is appropriate for surveying this species. NMFS should endeavor to communicate to stakeholders why survey gear may be operating differently than commercial gear and how such differences may or may not affect assessments. In the case of summer flounder, the effect of tow duration on the size distribution of

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

fish caught should be studied to understand differences in gear selectivity that may exist between surveys and commercial catch.

Gear and operating procedures used in all surveys should be evaluated on a regular basis (e.g., every 5-10 years and particularly at the time research vessels are changed) to ensure that they are still reasonable by industry standards. Modernizing gear and procedures is one way to increase the credibility of survey results to fishermen. Another means of boosting NMFS' credibility would be to run parallel surveys with commercial fishermen. This will help determine how catchabilities compare between the survey and the fishery and help improve communication between NMFS and commercial fishermen. It also can help in the interpretation of fishery-dependent data, for example, how commercial CPUE is changing over time relative to survey CPUE. Incorporating fishermen's knowledge into sampling design and analysis, especially about where and how long to fish, could improve sampling efficiency and NMFS' credibility with fishermen.

The interstate commissions should initiate or continue efforts to get states to standardize their surveys to improve the comparability of their survey data, decrease the frequency of their surveys to increase the stations on any specific survey, or in some cases, shift from doing surveys to other activities more useful for coastwide stock assessments.

New survey methods should be pursued. NMFS should increase its use of hydroacoustic and other developing methods to estimate the stocks of surface-dwelling, mid-water, and other vertically-oriented fish species (e.g., rockfish) that are not susceptible to bottom trawls usually used in NMFS surveys, where this would lead to a cost-effective gain in precision. Although acoustic methods don't work for flatfish, they may be useful for other species.

Survey Vessels

Findings: Fishery-independent surveys using calibrated vessels owned by NOAA provide vital and irreplaceable data for stock assessments and ecological monitoring and other fishery assessment purposes. Trawl surveys are especially susceptible to variability caused by differences among vessels, so calibrated vessels are a necessity. Many kinds of data can be collected only by using survey vessels, although NMFS charters 40 percent of its survey and research days at sea on commercial and university vessels annually for other purposes. NOAA survey vessels are aging and in need of replacement and it appears that the number of ships and ship time available for surveys is not adequate to meet all critical needs.

Recommendations: The committee endorses the efforts of Congress and NMFS to maintain a strong fleet of NOAA survey vessels, particularly for trawl and acoustic surveys, by replacing aging vessels with new, more capable, and more quiet ones. NMFS should continue to use charter and lease-back arrangements, where appropriate, even as the agency acquires new survey vessels. Congress should not only fund the construction of new vessels, but also should provide adequate funding for survey and research work performed by these vessels.

Adaptive Sampling

Findings: Adaptive sampling provides a means of increasing the precision of certain kinds of survey estimates, especially total biomass of some species, by using information obtained during the survey to determine where additional sampling should be done. In a sense, fishermen act as adaptive samplers when they locate and fish intensively in areas where the fish are present, but they do not sample in a way that is statistically valid. Although adaptive sampling is generally a single-species approach, sampling rules may be defined so that precision would be increased for groups of species that have similar distributions. Knowledge of habitat preferences can be used to design adaptive sampling schemes. Adaptive sampling is not appropriate for other purposes, such as mapping species distributions,

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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monitoring recovery of depleted populations, or tracking migration, especially where the rarity or absence of some species is important information.

Recommendations: NMFS should explore alternative data collection and analysis designs, including using adaptive sampling, as an approach to fishery-independent surveys (e.g., as practiced in New Zealand and Canada). Adaptive sampling using commercial fishing vessels in conjunction with NMFS survey vessels also should be explored.

Data from Commercial Fisheries

Fishery-dependent data arise from the catch or catch rates of individual fishermen and therefore pertain to both the biological population of interest and the harvesters of that population. Because people harvest fish for a number of different reasons (commercial, recreational, ceremonial, subsistence) many different motivations influence the time, place, and gear employed in catching fish. These influences can obscure changes in the abundance of a stock, but stock abundance is still an important determinant of the catch. If confounding influences can be accounted for, fishery-dependent data can provide an important source of information regarding trends in fish populations and more generally trends in the fishery. Consequently, it is important to conduct research to understand the motivations of harvesters to enable accurate interpretation of fishery-dependent data. A necessary prerequisite for this research is the collection of data on the determinants of catch in commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries.

Standardized and Formalized Data Collection

Findings: NRC (1998a) recommended “that a standardized and formalized data collection protocol be established for commercial fisheries data nationwide.” (p. 117). More specifically, “[s]ome regions, for example, the U.S. Northeast, are in the midst of the development and publication of new protocols, whereas other regions do not appear to use standardized methods. The lack of formalized, peer-reviewed data collection methods in commercial fisheries is worrisome. To the extent that formalized and standardized procedures are lacking, potential bias and improper survey conduct must exist, with unknown impact on data reliability” (pp. 116-117). The trend in new database management systems (e.g., ACCSP and the proposed Fisheries Information System) to standardize systems is an important development. The Fisheries Information System is intended to serve as a national umbrella of regional systems that meet regional needs. Nevertheless, the national system could fail to meet national needs if each region adopts different data standards.

Recommendations: As part of the Fisheries Information System, NMFS should work with regions to develop and publish a standardized data collection protocol and required data elements for commercial fisheries data (e.g., logbooks, observers, VMS) nationwide. A core set of data should be required from all commercial fisheries in all regions, with other data components being more specific to certain species, types of fisheries, or regional management needs. Standardization should take into account the cost-benefit analysis recommended earlier.

Incentives for Timely and Accurate Reporting

Finding: Commercial and recreational fishermen may misreport catch, bycatch and discards, or landings for a variety of reasons, some of which may be intentional (e.g., underreporting to avoid regulatory limitations and penalties or overreporting to increase standing for future allocation decisions based on historical catch levels). Reducing the incentives for misreporting (or increasing the incentives for accurate reporting) would ultimately improve the credibility and

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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quality of fishery-dependent data and allow such data to be a better complement to fishery-independent surveys. Good evidence exists that improved cooperation among scientists, managers, and fishermen in designing and participating in a meaningful way in data collection can improve the quality of fishery-dependent data.

Recommendations: NMFS and fishery scientists should identify the most important incentives and disincentives that could be used to promote accurate reporting (see also our earlier recommendations on data fouling). NMFS and the regional councils should determine how to design regulations and management that provide incentives for fishermen to provide accurate and complete data, without compromising their personal economic welfare. It is important to encourage fishermen to follow regulations while simultaneously rewarding them for reporting the degree to which they did not. This objective can be achieved by using graduated penalties, so that minor infractions are more likely to be reported. Congress and NMFS should consider incentives to encourage commercial fishermen to invest in technologies that will provide data to make fisheries management more timely and effective.

Collectively, studies related to co-management, cooperative relationships between industry and scientists, and incentives for misreporting catch data indicate that early and active incorporation of fishermen 's viewpoints into research and regulatory processes could improve fisheries management. Communication among groups is essential, including explanations of how decisions were reached.

As fishermen develop business relationships with commercial data management companies, it is important for NMFS to work with commercial fishermen and their third-party data providers to get the most useful data into the NMFS data system. Great care should be taken to avoid devaluing useful and innovative commercial products and processes by government regulations and bureaucracy.

Incentives for Commercial Assistance in Data Collection

Findings: Commercial fishermen are businessmen who must devote a great deal of time and effort to keeping their businesses solvent. Any time that they are not tending to their business creates an opportunity cost that must be balanced against the benefit of the alternative activity. Thus, the benefits of cooperation with NMFS and state fishery agencies will be judged against the costs of not fishing and fishermen 's other business activities. Cooperation will not develop if this tradeoff does not result in a net benefit to fishermen. The Magnuson-Stevens Act allows councils to set aside part of the allowable biological catch for a fishery to compensate cooperating fishermen. In a recent example, scallop fishermen were allowed to land a larger catch to offset observer costs in scallop surveys and bycatch studies on closed areas of Georges Bank. Another mechanism used in New England fisheries is to link availability of disaster relief funds to fishermen's willingness to volunteer for joint NMFS-industry research activities.

Recommendations: NMFS and the regional councils should explore ways to offer incentives or to enhance existing incentives to enlist the help of commercial fishermen, such as charter arrangements and allowing fishermen to keep and sell catch obtained while assisting NMFS in research and surveys (“fish for research”).

Observer Data

Findings: Observers are an essential source of some kinds of information needed to validate or adjust self-reported commercial data. From individual hauls, observers record catch data such as bycatch, discards, and interactions with prohibited species (e.g., sea birds, marine mammals, marine turtles, salmon, halibut, and crab). Observers can also record information about the area traveled by the boat, the depth of fishing, types of

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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gear, changes in gear during a trip, catches by catcher-processor vessels, and size and age of catch as it relates to location. Some of this information is sometimes available from logbooks, but much of it can only be gathered on a routine basis from observers.

In some areas, such as the North Pacific region, where significant amounts of fish are processed at sea, observer data are crucial for managing quotas for target species and prohibited species catches on a real-time basis. Certain types of management systems (e.g., trip limits and some types of individual quota systems) may increase discarding and thus may be priorities for observer coverage. Regulatory discards seem to be a particular problem in the commercial summer flounder fishery, but fishermen are reluctant to report the full extent of discards because they fear that the information will be used to decrease their allowable catches or used to generate enforcement measures (i.e., fines) against boats. Although fishery-wide bycatch and discards may not be fully monitored by observers on all vessels, they can be estimated by comparing the composition of catches on vessels with and without observers, if appropriate assumptions are used. The same care and statistical principles are necessary in designing an observer program as in designing a survey.

Information gathered by skippers informally from observers and shared with cooperating vessels via a commercial data management firm has yielded a more efficient fishery with lower bycatch rates in the North Pacific region. Cooperation works in these fisheries because there is a fleet-wide maximum allowed bycatch of prohibited species, so it is in everyone's interest to notify competing fishermen of high-bycatch areas. The potential sharing of a good fishing location with competitors is an acceptable cost if it results in better fishing practices that lengthen the season and sustain fishery resources. The timeliness of this information sharing is an important factor and this information would be useless if available more than a few hours or days after observations were made. This system is possible only because the industry provides observer data voluntarily to a third party. Confidentiality problems would hinder NMFS from serving the same function.

Recommendations: NMFS should evaluate current levels of observer coverage, and means for increasing the effectiveness of observers and deployment designs. The effectiveness of observer coverage can be judged in terms of the needed precision from observer data compared with the precision available for a given level of observer coverage (see Figure 3-2). Minimal acceptable coverage depends on the objective of the management methods used, but care should be taken to ensure that sampled vessels are representative of the fishery as a whole. Figure 3-2 demonstrates that observer coverage for some fisheries must be increased well above present summer flounder coverage (0.6-0.8 percent), particularly for bycatch monitoring. NMFS should consider increasing observer coverage to at least 25 percent for commercial summer flounder trips over several years to obtain a better estimate of bycatch discards and misreporting in the summer flounder fishery.

Some information can be obtained only by at-sea observer programs, but at-sea observers are extremely expensive. Because observer programs are expensive to either NMFS or industry (in the case of Alaskan fisheries), careful consideration should be given to how much NMFS should pay and how much specific fleets should pay, for example, through a fee-based observer program. However, many fisheries do not generate the level of revenue seen in Alaskan fisheries and therefore could not support observers directly. The approach of allowing extra catch for vessels carrying observers, to pay for observer coverage, should be tested broadly. It is important that all observer programs that use less than 100 percent coverage institute statistical designs that apportion observer coverage in a statistically valid manner (e.g., see NOAA, 1999), with special attention to measurement of possible effects on catches of having an observer onboard. The goals of each observer program need to be specified

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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very carefully and other, less expensive, means of obtaining the needed data should be examined. In some cases, the cost of obtaining good data on discarding and misreporting may be greater than the benefits of reducing these problems. Despite the costs and other problems, observers should be used when it is clear that observer coverage can provide necessary scientific or management information and would be cost-effective in relation to other data collection techniques.

NMFS should pursue efforts to develop a national database of observer data in its Fisheries Information System. To ensure that data within such a database are comparable among regions, standardized data collection forms and training for observers is needed. These national efforts would not preclude the necessary regional implementation of observer programs at the discretion of regional councils. As for other fisheries data, NMFS should find ways to release aggregated observer data in a timely manner, and sunset periods should be set for observer data.

Real-time availability of bycatch data can be particularly useful in helping fishermen avoid high bycatch areas. NMFS and Congress should find ways to encourage (in legislation and regulations) such voluntary, real-time sharing of bycatch information, including encouraging commercial and non-profit mechanisms to accomplish this goal.

Logbook Data

Findings: Logbooks compiled by fishermen and fish dealers can be effective and cost-effective sources of data concerning abundance and other characteristics of fish stocks and fisheries. But, if fishermen and fish dealers do not believe that stock assessments and fisheries management are responsive to their needs or concerned with their survival, they will not willingly submit accurate and complete logbook data. If forced to participate, they may provide biased information to try to influence the outcome of the assessment or because they do not believe it is worth their effort (or may even damage their interests) to provide accurate data. Logbook data are underutilized in many U.S. fisheries because of concerns about their validity and the cost and time required to get logbook data into electronic form. There can be a significant lag in the collection of logbooks and the availability of the data for management (e.g., California is a year behind in reporting logbook data to the PacFIN system). Such lags decrease the usefulness of logbook data for stock assessments and other purposes. A large proportion of fishing vessels now have computers onboard, making electronic logbooks feasible. Electronic logbooks may provide more accurate and timely spatial data that may eventually be critical for management of local stocks and for evaluation of essential habitat. However, doubts about the legal validity of electronic submissions have caused fishermen in some areas to provide data both in electronic form and as signed hardcopy forms in the federal format.

Recommendations: Logbooks should be required from fishermen and dealers. Dealer reports, observers, and other methods should be use to validate estimated weights in logbooks and provide additional economic information not contained in logbooks.

Commercial logbooks will be more useful for stock assessments if a standardized format is designed and required. The standards may differ by type of vessel, gear, stock, and fishery but there should be a minimum set of information collected from all fisheries and all vessels, including starting and ending times and coordinates of each tow (for trawl fisheries), or soak time and coordinates (for longline, trap, and pot fisheries), species and amounts caught, and species and amounts discarded. Congress should also consider mandating logbooks for charter/party vessel fisheries in the recreational sector because of the imprecision of measurements of catch by charter/party vessel fisheries available from the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS). Finally, it should be recognized that if logbooks are required by more than one level of government (state, regional, federal, and international), agencies

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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should coordinate their efforts to reduce the burden of duplicative reporting (which may involve more than merely multiple logbooks). To make logbook programs more effective, they should be made less onerous for fishermen to fill out accurately and submit in a timely manner. This goal can be achieved, in part, by involving fishermen in the design of logbook forms, and using focus groups and field testing to ensure that the forms actually provide the information they are designed to provide. The use of logbook data is particularly important for fisheries in which fishery-independent surveys are conducted infrequently or not at all.

Electronic submission of data should be developed in ways that reduce the errors that occur with data entry and transfer, and improve spatial data for management purposes. Fishermen should be encouraged to report by electronic means and NMFS should continue to promote commercial development of electronic logbooks. NMFS might continue development of electronic logbook systems via Department of Commerce Requests for Proposals for its Small Business Innovation Research grant program.

Fishermen will use electronic logbooks if they find that they have advantages over paper logbooks. One of the greatest incentives would be for NMFS to invest in the data processing personnel needed to take advantage of electronic logbook information. NMFS should also take whatever steps are needed to remove all doubts about whether logbooks meet legal requirements. NMFS should provide various value-added data products to fishermen based on their logbook data, for example, timely port- or regionally-averaged CPUE values, and reports to individual fishermen both on-line (password protected) and in written form on a monthly basis, to verify the fisherman's data. The International Pacific Halibut Commission sends logbook data to fishermen to verify their catch information. The Fisheries Information System is proposing to issue monthly statements to fishermen. Logbook data should be available to fishermen and others as soon as possible after they are collected.

The introduction of electronic logbooks will move the bottleneck in data collection and management to the landing ticket data. The delay in entry of landing ticket data can be up to six months. Such data consist of weight and value information collected by fish dealers and provided to the states. Landing ticket data are compared with logbook data before logbook data are used for stock assessments. To make efficient use of electronic logbooks to speed the availability of logbook data for stock assessments, it will be necessary to take the next step, getting landing ticket data into electronic format as quickly as possible. This situation illustrates that the entire fishery data system must be examined to eliminate bottlenecks that cause lags in data availability.

Historic information should also be converted into electronic form, if this would be cost effective. It is important that individual records remain confidential until sunset periods have passed, so the level of data aggregation will remain an issue.

Vessel Monitoring System Data

Findings: Vessel monitoring systems (VMSs) have been tested in several U.S. fisheries, demonstrating their usefulness in tracking the locations of fishing vessels and their usefulness to enforcement personnel, managers, and to the fishermen themselves. VMS data have numerous potential applications beyond monitoring of time and area closures and other enforcement uses. Spatial data from VMS units can be used to verify positions in both fishing logs and observer logs and generally to assist interpretation of fisheries data. VMSs may also prove to be valuable in putting catch data into a spatial format that can be linked to electronic logbooks. In some fisheries, however, the estimates of tow-by-tow catches and discards are so inaccurate that knowing the location of such retained catches and discards might not justify the cost of VMS systems for non-enforcement purposes. Fishermen in some fisheries have also used the ship-to-shore communication capabilities of some VMSs for

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

personal and business purposes. The cost of VMS units has limited the interest of small boat owners, although mass production could reduce the unit cost of VMS devices.

Recommendations: NMFS should consider implementation of VMS programs in all U.S. fisheries for which such programs would be cost effective. Before implementing a VMS in any specific fishery for non-enforcement purposes, however, NMFS should determine whether tow-by-tow data on catch amount, discards, and species composition are accurate enough to justify the expense necessary to determine the location of each tow using a VMS unit. The costs and benefits in terms of data availability could be determined using computer simulations.

NMFS and councils should consider the usefulness of position data for all managed fisheries, whether for monitoring and enforcing management based on closed areas, providing spatial data to improve understanding of changes in distribution and abundance of fish stocks, or for other purposes. NMFS should ensure that VMS data are linked to other data sources and are made available to stock assessment experts (see also recommendations on data confidentiality). NMFS should recognize that VMSs will be willingly and rapidly adapted by fishermen who perceive that VMSs provide them with value-added information worth more than the cost of the unit. Development of the VMS approach should include system integration across technologies (i.e., VMS, FIS, electronic logbooks). NMFS and the regional councils should consider other mechanisms to encourage VMS use, such as:

  • leasing units to fishermen,

  • liberalizing management regimes when compliance can be monitored by VMS,

  • making the units useful to fishermen in management of their businesses through a variety of communication capabilities,

  • making it possible for fishermen to reach their individual or fishery quotas and stay on the fishing grounds until the last minute, and

  • instituting NMFS “fleetnet” broadcasts of bycatch data to vessels on the grounds.

VMS data should not be confidential indefinitely, but should be available freely after a reasonable period.

Data from Recreational Fisheries
Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS)

Findings: Unlike most commercial fishery operations, in which a small number of vessels land large volumes of fish in a highly regulated manner at designated ports, most recreational fisheries tend to have a great number of individual fishermen who are highly dispersed in where they fish and how they land fish, operating in a system that is not uniformly regulated or licensed. MRFSS is used to estimate the number of fish removed by recreational fisheries. MRFSS uses phone surveys of households in coastal counties to assess effort and on-site intercept surveys to assess CPUE and species composition of recreational landings and bycatch. This is relatively expensive and inefficient because of the large reference frame of coastal households surveyed by random digit dialing, with a relatively small proportion being marine anglers, and the large number of recreational fishing sites. In many regions, phone surveys and on-site interviews conducted by MRFSS appear to provide the necessary information for estimating recreational fisheries catch and effort to be used in subsequent years' assessments, but MRFSS is not designed to provide information timely enough for in-season management. There is a three- to four-month delay in providing recreational catch estimates. This was not a great problem when MRFSS was developed, but the increasing proportion of catch taken by recreational fishermen is creating management problems in some fisheries. Overruns can be caused by recreational fisheries, putting councils in a position of having to compensate for overruns in the following year. For example, it has

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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been estimated that the summer flounder recreational fishery exceeded its share of the TAC by 40 percent in 1998.

MRFSS serves as a de facto national standard for recreational data, insofar as individual states participate, although some states (e.g., Texas) have chosen not to participate because they fund their own extensive data collection activities. Other methods have been used to estimate recreational catch for particularly valuable fish species (e.g., Pacific halibut) and species monitored by measuring escapement (e.g., Pacific salmon). The devolution of MRFSS activities in the Gulf of Mexico region to regional control could hinder necessary standardization and quality control. MRFSS has a systematic plan for addressing known sampling problems, but seems to lack the personnel and financial resources to make rapid progress in updating its procedures.

Recommendations: In the short term, MRFSS should be extended to all coastal states with significant marine recreational fisheries that have requested inclusion. Additionally, methods to improve precision, such as longitudinal sampling (a high priority to MRFSS), should be included. In longitudinal sampling, households that report angling or a likelihood of future angling are recontacted in subsequent sampling waves. The retention of identified angling households, at least for the next sampling wave, would increase survey efficiency. Efficiency could also be increased if sampling strata were built up of the phone numbers of individuals who fish regularly, ones who fish occasionally, and ones who fish rarely, and sampling effort is allocated optimally among these strata. However, a problem that can arise with such an approach that samples avid anglers on an ongoing basis is that individual anglers eventually refuse to cooperate. This problem can be avoided by using longitudinal sampling in which any specific angler is contacted only a few times. NMFS should recognize that needs for recreational data may differ somewhat among regions and NMFS should work with regional councils and interstate commissions to identify region-specific recreational data needs, while maintaining an adequate level of nationwide standardization.

MRFSS continually identifies statistical and other issues that need to be addressed to improve its surveys. The committee has prioritized a set of questions and issues (some already identified by MRFSS) that NMFS should consider in future improvements to its recreational sampling programs.

  1. How valid are the MRFSS assumptions (1) about the ability of the intercept survey to equally survey coastal and noncoastal residents who engage in each fishing mode, two-month sampling wave, and state; and (2) that fishing patterns with respect to types of fish caught are the same within these categories for residents of coastal and noncoastal counties? It is not economically feasible to sample persons in all noncoastal counties; however, a study designed to compare fishing patterns of residents of coastal and noncoastal areas may be warranted. A feasible first step might be to compare the fishing patterns of residents of coastal counties, already surveyed, in relation to their distance from the water (or perhaps their landing site). For the telephone survey, why is each county considered separately — thereby acting as individual de facto strata? It might be more efficient statistically to group counties and to stratify on region within the state. NMFS should test the efficiency of this alternative stratification scheme. NMFS should continue its comparisons of data quality and costs of using sampling frames based on salt-water fishing licenses versus frames based on random-digit dialing.

  2. Cluster effects among fishermen on a single charterboat may arise from either the fact that all persons on a boat are fishing in the same area, or the fact that members of the group may share personal features such as skill in fishing or interest in a particular species. The MRFSS document does indicate that a cluster effect occurs in charter vessel fisheries due to sampling

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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all anglers who have similar demographic characteristics (ASMFC, 1994, page 1-10). How was this adjusted for in the analysis or possibly in the sampling effort? Adjustments on a “case-by-case basis” seems vague and should be better documented with objective criteria.

  1. How does MRFSS deal with missing and unusual values? For example, when a fisherman is not home, MRFSS calculations assume that the missing person has the same patterns of fishing as those already surveyed. This seems highly unlikely; for example, persons not at home because they are working may fish much less than persons who are retired. If a fisherman has an unusually high catch exceeding the 95th percentile, the value is reduced to the 95th percentile (ASMFC, 1994, page 1-9). Are such outliers true large values or spurious? The impact of these outliers should be smaller if fewer, but still homogenous, strata are used. Additional study may be required to validate this practice. MRFSS might also explore ways to estimate the true catch at that upper end and add the estimate to the total below the 95th percentile.

  2. How valid is the assumption in roving surveys that if a trip is half over, one can double the number of fish caught in the first half of the day (particularly if weather changes during the day) to estimate the day's total catch? It is unclear how time of day impacts survey outcome. For example, do early morning catch composition and numbers differ from afternoon catch? Is sampling across time of day conducted in an unbiased fashion? How interviewers attempt to get a cross-section of fisherman within each mode should be made clear in MRFSS documentation.

Some of these issues can be addressed using existing data, but new data may be needed to assess the validity of the assumptions made in the survey. Even though these effects may not markedly affect total catch estimates, it is important to determine their impact.

In addition to improving MRFSS, other options for improving recreational data include mandatory logbooks for all charterboat and party boat fisheries (as discussed earlier, these provide more precise catch data) and mandatory marine recreational fishery licenses nationwide. Another option would be to use a dual-frame approach, in which an incomplete recreational license frame could be augmented with some level of randomdigit dialing. Another means to improve charter boat/party boat data would be to develop and use a complete list of vessels, require them to maintain logbooks to verify catch rates, and use the lists for telephone surveys of this fishing sector.

In-Season Monitoring of Recreational Fisheries Catch

Findings: MRFSS was designed to monitor recreational catch and effort each year to use in stock assessments run in subsequent years. MRFSS provides a relatively long time series of such data. It was not designed to track catch during a season for the purpose of monitoring recreational catch against the TAC.

Recreational fishing harvest cannot be kept within its portion of the TAC unless data on the catch are timely and accurate enough to allow inseason closures. For example, salmon and halibut fisheries on the West Coast use in-season management measures to allow early closures or extensions of the seasons, depending on how fast the TAC is approached. It is difficult for MRFSS in its present configuration to monitor in-season catch because of the nature of recreational fisheries. Unlike most commercial fisheries, in which relatively few individuals participate in the fishery, hold licenses, and can be contacted directly, marine recreational fishing is undertaken by many individuals, typically unlicensed, at multiple and diffuse access points, who are less accessible to gather data from than are commercial fishermen.

Each sampling wave lasts two months and post-wave processing may require an additional two months. Because MRFSS is a sampling survey, its data must undergo statistical procedures to estimate total catch by combining the telephone effort estimate with catch rate estimates

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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derived from on-site intercept surveys. Effort data reported at the end of the process are two to four months old. Thus, a catch limit reached early in a given sampling wave would not be detected until two to four months later. MRFSS, as currently conducted, would have difficulty providing catch estimates timely enough to be used for closure of recreational fisheries with seasons shorter than four months. This can be contrasted with catch data from commercial fisheries, which are reported on a weekly to monthly basis and are thus amenable to tracking against the TAC.

In-season monitoring of recreational catch is as important as monitoring commercial catch in heavily exploited fisheries with a substantial recreational component because both sectors can contribute to TAC overruns, which diminishes the effectiveness of management. As might be expected, attempts to use MRFSS for in-season monitoring (particularly at fine scales) have not usually been successful. This lack of success should not be taken as proof that MRFSS is ineffective nor does it mean that in-season monitoring is impossible. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that an enhanced MRFSS or an entirely different system will be necessary if it is determined that in-season monitoring of recreational catch and effort are worthy and cost-effective goals.

Recommendations: NMFS should poll the regional fishery management councils to determine if they could use more timely recreational data if they were available. If councils want this type of data, NMFS should seek funding to design and test both augmentations to MRFSS and entirely new systems, with the additional goal of determining the costs and benefits of in-season recreational data availability. The optimal direction for management of recreational fisheries may be clear after NMFS explores means of very rapid retrieval and analysis of recreational data.

MRFSS data might be made more timely by using shorter, more numerous sampling waves; increasing the number of phone calls in the telephone surveys; and/or using license list frames and longitudinal sampling. An alternate approach to obtain in-season measures would be to institute a survey to monitor specific recreational fisheries. Such a survey could contact anglers weekly or even more frequently during the season. However, such a survey would still have to undergo quality control and statistical expansion procedures to produce estimates of total effort (and potentially catch) and this would produce some lag time in these estimates, although possibly shorter than for MRFSS. Although such a targeted approach could make recreational data more timely, it still might be difficult to use in short-season fisheries and for seasonally migrating stocks. Each of these options would undoubtedly increase the cost of collecting recreational fisheries data.

Despite these hurdles, the value of in-season estimates of recreational catch for important fisheries such as summer flounder deserves further study. Implementation of in-season tracking of recreational catch data could revolutionize management of fisheries with significant recreational catch. Offsetting the cost of making MRFSS data more timely would be the benefit of reducing the likelihood that recreational fisheries (e.g., the summer flounder fishery) would overrun their portion of the overall TAC for a fishery.

NMFS should explore the possibility of modifying MRFSS survey contracts to require rapid feedback to fishery managers and others and to weigh the financial and precision costs of such estimates against the value of greater timeliness.

The committee recognizes that each of these approaches will face substantial opposition from anglers, but believes that drastic steps are necessary because the expanding recreational components in many fisheries are making the fisheries less manageable.

Auxiliary Information

Some information cannot now be input directly into an assessment model (and thus could

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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be considered as “auxiliary” to biological data), but is relevant to the assessment or decision-making process to help explain why fish stocks fluctuate (physical and biological oceanographic data), to predict how stocks might fluctuate (climate forecasts), and to understand the outcomes of fishery regulations (economic and social data). In general, stock assessment and forecast models do not incorporate social, economic, and environmental data. Multispecies virtual population analysis models have been developed to take into account predator-prey relationships among commercial species, but these models still do not generally consider non-commercial species or ecosystem-level effects. Also, existing multispecies models are used primarily to estimate natural mortality rates (an important task in itself) but not for more general management.

Social and Economic Data

Findings: Many fishery problems that appear to result from the biology of fish stocks are actually rooted in the economics of a fishery. For example, low catches and catch rates, poor recruitment, excessive impacts of fishing gear on habitats, bycatch, and attacks on data and science are the expected result of the economic factors of overcapitalization and overharvest, which are the end results of an open-access fishery. Economic data are needed to document the extent of overcapitalization and to assist in designing mechanisms to bring fishing, economic stability, and sustainable yields into balance. Such information is important because the behavior of fishermen, whether recreational or commercial, is influenced by economic conditions. The ability of fishermen to switch from targeting one fish stock to another is impacted by prices paid by fish dealers and by management systems (e.g., licensing and single-species quotas). As one fisherman told the committee: “There is an absolute need to develop systematic socio-economic fisher and vessel data that doesn't rely on 10-page surveys administered every 5 years in the face of a major allocation decision. When the agency attempts to collect socio-economic data against the backdrop of a particular decision, it is inevitable that fishers will try to anticipate the use to which the information is being put and answer accordingly.” (D. Fraser, commercial fisherman, personal communication, 1999)

Recommendations: Congress should authorize and support NMFS in the routine collection of economic data for commercial and recreational fisheries. Congress must first make such data collection legal (see also NRC, 1999b) by eliminating prohibitions on collecting economic and financial fisheries data in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (Sec. 303[b] [7] and 402[a]) to make commercial fisheries and processor data more accessible. Other confidentiality provisions in the Magnuson-Stevens Act and state laws are adequate to protect any economic data collected.

Overfished fisheries that are also overcapitalized should be identified. Economic data collected should include characterizations of the distribution of benefits and costs associated with existing fishing practices and with proposed regulations—who receives or will receive financial or social benefits versus who may bear the associated costs. Councils and NMFS should identify economic impacts of regulations before and after they are enacted. The success of such assessments will depend on the results of yet-to-be-funded research on the types of regulatory frameworks and economic contexts that promote fishermen's behavior that is conducive to sustaining marine fisheries. Fishermen requested that regulations be maintained for long enough to assess their impacts; this is a good strategy, but may require larger, less frequent changes that might be resisted more by the industry.

NMFS also should support the construction of coupled biological-economic models that incorporate behavioral assumptions regarding fishermen so that the effects of economic behavior on fishing effort can be modeled. These models will need an increased quantity of social and economic data from fishermen. Prices paid to fishermen by dealers and to dealers by processors, and

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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fishing cost surveys are needed for such a stock assessment process using bioeconomic models. This approach has the potential to improve both stock assessment and management and to help predict the impact of management changes on fish stocks, individual fishermen, and fishing communities.

Social data needed include information about employment, community structure, and how fishermen may respond to management (including shifts to other fisheries), as well as social and economic data for recreational fisheries. PFMC (1998a) noted that baseline economic and social data on the fishing industry and communities is needed to better predict potential impacts of fisheries management. Examples of baseline descriptive data include “vessel characteristics, fishing strategies, catch mixes, and vessel mobility for both commercial vessels and recreational charter vessels.” (PFMC, 1998a).

Environmental and Ecosystem Data

A variety of data should be collected to monitor how the environment affects fish stocks and marine ecosystems, and how fishing affects marine ecosystems.

Effects of Fishing on Marine Ecosystems

Findings: In recent years, increased concern has been expressed about the effect of fishing on marine ecosystems, in addition to its direct effect on target species of fish. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that fishery management plans minimize, to the extent practicable, adverse effects of fishing on essential fish habitat. Regulations implementing the act require that fishery management plans contain assessments of the impacts of fishing gear. The information available on fishing effects is quite limited. The ecosystem effects of fishing activities and ecosystem-based fisheries management are thus important concerns of fisheries management worldwide (Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, 1999; Hall, 1999; Kaiser and deGroot, 1999; NRC, 1999a). Clearly, fisheries management and fisheries science must both consider a wider range of factors than has previously been the case, when data collected for fisheries management tended to focus on individual species for the purpose of stock assessments.

In the past, ecosystem data have been collected to provide information for scientific research projects, as a by-product of sampling target species. To some fishery agencies (and bodies that are responsible for appropriating funding to these agencies), long-term ecosystem monitoring may appear to be unimportant, so that with any cost cutting or shifting demands on scientific staff, these may be the first activities to be eliminated. This can be a short-sighted and risky strategy. NMFS must do its best, now, to determine what data from the present era will be needed five, ten, twenty, or more years in the future, and ensure that the data are collected. Similarly, it must determine what long-range research strategies must be instituted now, and ensure that the data are available to develop and defend these strategies.

The effects of fishing on the wider ecosystem will require using studies of the effects of different fishing gear and fishing methods on target species, non-target species, and marine ecosystems. Studies of the fishing mortality rate on vulnerable species are particularly important. Mortality might be better understood by investigations of the size and age structure of populations. The amounts and kinds of data that surveys collect and process already press the limit of available resources. Any expansion of monitoring will require additional funding and personnel.

Recommendations: Congress and NMFS should ensure that adequate funding is available to conduct monitoring of marine ecosystems and to study the effects of fishing on them. Variables that should be monitored include the biomass and recruitment of commercial and non-commercial species, levels of fishing activity, the quantity and quality of essential fish habitats, and the occurrence of other events and processes that can confound the effects of fishing on marine ecosystems. Fishery surveys may provide a cost-effective platform for the conduct of necessary research. Stud-

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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ies of the feeding habits and the distribution and types of prey and predators of important non-target species should also be conducted to understand the functioning of the marine ecosystems that could be affected by fishing activities. After en suring that ecosystem-level monitoring is under way, the next most important activity is to under stand how fishing affects marine ecosystems. The results of such studies may help managers reduce negative effects of fishing.

Effects of the Marine Environment on Fish Populations

Findings: It has been known for some time that environmental factors influence recruitment, as indicated by the poor relationships between the size of the spawning stock biomass and recruitment for many species. Evidence continues to grow in sup port of such factors as ocean temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen concentration, phytoplankton type and abundance, and predation as having a major impact on recruitment and subsequent yearclass strength (Murawaski, 1993; Hixon and Carr, 1997). In addition, the relationships between en vironmental factors —particularly temparature— and maturity and growth may be more deicernable than relationships between enviornmental factors and recruitment. Direct incorporation of environ mental data in stock assessments is limited, but many analysts now recognize the importance of environmental effects and enviornmental forecast ing. However, many stock assessment models and mangement cotrol rules still assume that recruit ment is proportional to spawning stock biomass and that the major dynamics of populations are driven by fishing-induced mortality.

Both enviornmental factors and spawning stock biomass are likely to be strong sources of variation in population abundance. The focus on extreme views in the debate has largely stalled the develop ment and acceptance of assessment tools and man agement protocols that account for both factors. One reason for this is that the two sides of the de bat are based on different philosophical paradigms. It seems best for management to argue the role of density-dependence, as this provides a strong and clear mechanism for optimal control over popula tion abundance and yield. It seems best for fisher men to argue for density-independence, as this dis counts human-induced causes of population change. Unfortunately, the density-dependent arguments ig nore real regime shifts in these systems, whereas the density-independent arguments ignore the ef fects of human intevention.

Another important reason to be able to under stand and predict effects of the enviornmental on fish populations is the need to rebuild fish popula tions to historic high levels as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Such levels may have occurred under more favorable enviornmental con ditions of the past, but may be unattainable under current conditions. Repeated missing of rebuild ing targets and consequent disruptions to manage ment could result.

Recommendations: NMFS scientists and man agers, in association with fishery stakeholders (es pecially fisherman), should move towards envision ing fisheries management in a more complete ecosystem context. This process has already be gun (NRC, 1999a) and the Magnuson-Stevens Act now requires consideration of essential fish habitat, for example, in fishery management plans (Sec. 303[a][7]). Such activities require routine use of enviorn mental data from other sources. Geospatial data will become increasingly important as managers try to move towards characterizing enviornmental effects.

NFMS should review its stock assessment and forecasting methods, as well as the life-his tory characteristics used in developing manage ment thresholds, to determine the need for more explicit inclusion of enviormental information. Important examples of fish and shellfish species

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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for which management thresholds should be reviewed are those that exhibit a small number of dominant year classes (e.g., surf clams, ocean quahogs, West Coast rockfish, Pacific whiting) or short life spans (e.g., shrimp). NMFS should encourage development of stock projection models that include species-specific enviornmental variables in addition to density-dependent mechanisms where appropriate. In addition to using the relationship between environmental factors and recruitment in assessments, quantifying the relationships between enviornmental factors and recruitment in assessment, quantifying the relationships between enviornmental factors and the stock assessments could yield improvements in assessments more quickly. NMFS scientists should develop the scientific methods needed to facilitate recognition of regime shifts, and take steps towards incorporating such methods where necessary (e.g., incorporating realistic expected recruitment in short-term projections that consider existing enviornmental regimes). Furthermore, NMFS should establish the means to collect the data required by the new generation of models. Many kinds of enviornmental data are already being collected by other government agencies (e.g., other parts of NOAA, NASA, EPA) and are available from these sources. It will be necessary to have enviornmental data on a scale and referance gird that is compatiable with needs for fisheries management. Continued research on the effects of the enviormental of fish population size, individual growth, survivorship, and spawning potential in conjunction with density-dependent effects is crucial for determining the kinds of data collection and stock assessments that should be used for any given species.

Cooperation and Communication
Cooperation With Industry

Findings: Some important forms of fishery-dependent data are either not collected (e.g., some economic and social data) or are underutilized because their accuracy is mistrusted. The accuracy of fishery-dependent data can be suspect because of incentives to misreport catch levels and locations and the effects of changes in management on catch and reporting. Despite these potential shortcomings, better use of commercial data could increase the ability of NMFS to sample the ocean and augment its surveys in a cost-effective manner. An important point that arose during the public meetings is that fishermen would be more interested in collaborating if the information they provide is used to help them and they are able to find out the results of the information and analyses more quickly.

Cooperation of NMFS with industry differs considerably among regions of the United States. Gear type (trawl versus fixed), past interactions, and agency use of funds play a role in determining the degree to which fishermen are (or are not) involved in data collection. Involving fishermen in data collection has an important sociological role as the fishermen gain a degree of “ownership” of the information process. But, a scientific role is met as well, by providing NMFS with data they could not otherwise obtain and a means for fishermen and scientists to communicate directly. Such cooperation could be extended to include funding provided by industry for directed research. When fishermen are involved in the data collection process, there are fewer complaints about the quality of the data, based on experiences of committee members.3 Fishermen should more often accept opportunities to participate in joint exercises.

3  

For example, Stephen Smith reports: “In meetings at which only government survey results were presented, survey procedures and results were a common target of industry complaints, whereas in meetings where industry surveys were one of, or the only, survey, very little criticism was leveled at the survey (although the results may be much discussed). All surveys are designed cooperatively by scientists of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the fishing industry, and conducted on fishing industry vessels with both fishery and scientific personnel participating. The following references provide examples of industry-based surveys being used. In the first two (Hurley et al., 1998; Mohn et al., 1998), the industry survey is used in conjunction with the government surveys while in the latter two (Koeller et al., 1998; Roberts et al., 1998) the industry survey is the only one available.”

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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An external report assessing NOAA fisheries research vessels also recommended that NMFS, nationwide, put more emphasis on developing “best practices” for interactions with fishermen, indicating that “NMFS as a whole needs to devote very serious effort and experimentation to the sociological aspects of its operations. They could use professional assistance in this area, as part of the legally-mandated increased emphasis on socioeconomic considerations in ecosystem-based management. NMFS must partner with a much broader segment of the interested community— fishermen, academics, industrialists—to a much greater degree than it ever has, in all aspects of its fisheries oceanography and fisheries monitoring and survey efforts” (Dorman, 1998).

Recommendations: NMFS should identify approaches that maintain the statistical rigor needed for long-term fishery assessments, while making the best use of local knowledge among commercial fishermen with expertise about specific stocks and gear types that are efficient at catching targeted stocks. Canada, New Zealand, and other nations provide models for positive interactions with industry.

NMFS should consider hiring commercial fisherman to participate in surveys (in addition to opportunities for unpaid participation) to see how sampling gear is used and where the surveys are conducted. NMFS also should carry out some joint sampling cruises using NMFS and commercial vessels, with exchanges of crew.

Harms and Sylvia (1999) suggested that collaborative research between fishermen and scientists should be “undertaken only if there is (1) equal partnership in planning and implementation, (2) adequate funding, (3) competent management, and (4) commitment to begin small and build on success.” If cooperative research is to be adopted on a broader basis, institutional changes in both industry and government agencies will be needed, and the recommendations of Harms and Sylvia should be considered.

Cooperation with Recreational Fishermen

Findings: The lack of a national program for saltwater fishing licenses greatly complicates estimation of recreational catch and effort. Such a requirement is controversial because many states do not presently require licenses, and anglers in those states do not want to face additional regulations and a perceived intrusion of government into their private lives. However, requiring licenses for marine recreational fishing (even free ones) could improve data collection efforts by providing a comprehensive sampling frame and eliminating the inefficient random-digit dialing surveys (but not the expensive intercept surveys). License frames are of greatest value when they obtain uniform information and are coordinated among the states. In theory, recreational effort assessments could be less costly (in terms of time, money, and staff) if based on license sample frames, because anglers would be identifiable and sampled more easily than with current methods. However, some states ' requirements for saltwater licenses exempt certain classes of anglers (see Table 3-9), which would complicate attempts to use saltwater recreational fishing licenses.

Recommendations: NFMS should increase its dialogue with recreational fishermen to jointly develop and implement improved data collection for recreational fisheries, through MRFSS, specially designed and coordinated tagging studies, and alternatives to MRFSS that allow in-season adjustments to recreational quotas. MRFSS should continue to evaluate whether saltwater fishing licenses and longitudinal sampling would provide cost-effective alternatives to random-digit dialing, keeping in mind that merely using license frames may not make MRFSS more timely or cost-efficient if different states use vastly different licensing programs.

Review

Findings: The review of data collection procedures is usually handled tangentially in the course

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

of reviewing stock assessments, but few reviews focus on data collection.

Recommendations: NMFS, in conjunction with the regional councils, should review all aspects of its data collection activities, on a fixed, publicly-announced schedule including all types of fishery-dependent and fishery-independent data. Such reviews should include both a scientific peer review and a stakeholder review. As part of this process, commercial fishermen and other stakeholders should participate in actual data collection exercises.

IMPROVING DATA MANAGEMENT

Defining User Groups and User Needs

Findings: Many types of stakeholders could be users of new fishery databases. Different user groups (federal and state agencies, fishermen, scientists, managers, environmental advocacy groups, consumers, local communities) have different needs and concerns about fish stocks and marine ecosystems. The primary focus of most existing data collection and management activities is on collecting sufficient data to conduct an accurate and precise scientific assessment of biomass relative to previous years. However, other potential users have different questions. For example, fishermen may want to know how the catch of different species correlates with environmental variables and how their business compares against port and fleet average performance. Community leaders may want to know how fishing is expected to fare in future years, whether fishing activity is shifting to or from their port, and the value of the local multiplier effect for different kinds of fishing-related businesses. Environmental advocates might want to know how fishing is affecting marine ecosystems and trends in bycatch. NMFS seems to be giving a low priority to putting fisheries data into the same geospatial format used for data from other agencies and working with other agencies to conform to the same data standards.

Recommendations: Research on stakeholder and user concerns and needs should be conducted and used to improve the outcome of any new fisheries data management system. NMFS and others responsible for data collection should recognize that the data they collect may be used in a broader context. Stakeholders should be enlisted to identify broader uses for both traditional and new data. NMFS, interstate commissions, and states should involve expected and potential data users and providers in designing their fishery data management systems. Mechanisms for involvement should identify and address the concerns and needs of data users and providers in relation to fishery databases. The kind of involvement used in design of the Atlantic Cooperative Coastal Statistics Program (ACCSP) may serve as a useful model.

Databases and Data Management Systems

Findings: ACCSP has been a good model of a regional data management system up to this point in its development. For example, it has identified a core data set and requires inclusion of all necessary data in a single database available to all partners. Less desirable are systems that allow one partner—either states, commissions, or the federal government—to have absolute control of data.

Recommendations: Regional databases should standardize their data collection, management, and quality control activities. The committee agrees with the directive of Congress in requesting a plan for a nationwide Fisheries Information System (FIS). The FIS design (based on coordinated regional systems) is good and its reliance on national standards is a positive feature. The FIS is ambitious, however, and for it to be successful, (1) Congress must provide adequate funding and (2) cooperation and balance among regions must be ensured. ACCSP, other regional databases, and the FIS should specify the national and international standards to which the system will comply, NMFS should:

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×
  • continue its plans to implement national data standards that are designed to promote data exchange,

  • include metadata with all data sets to ensure that data can be understood properly,

  • promote the wide distribution of shareable data and metadata,

  • create the ability to cross-validate logbook, observer, dealer, and VMS records to assess and improve the quality of fishery-dependent data, and

  • work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to prevent confusion between the NMFS Fisheries Information System and the FWS Fishery Information System, a data system for freshwater migratory fish.

Findings: Estimating the costs and benefits of existing and planned fisheries data management systems is an important task. Some analyses of costs and benefits of regulatory impact are required as part of fishery management plans (FMPs; MSFCMA Sec. 303[a][9]), although FMPs do not require analysis of data management as a separate phase. Analysis of the actual costs and benefits of an operational FMP often include factors that are difficult to quantify in economic terms, such as better information availability and streamlining an activity. The committee agrees with NMFS that developing an FIS is critical for fulfilling its responsibilities pursuant to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 in terms of collecting relevant data, tracking progress in achieving performance goals, and ensuring integrity and accountability.

Recommendations: NMFS should continue to attempt to find ways to contain costs and increase benefits from its fisheries data management activities. In part, this can be accomplished by continued cooperation with states and regions in data management and looking for opportunities to build on existing efforts (e.g., through FIS), rather than duplicate them. Another means to achieve this goal would be increased use of commercial data and better recreational data that could be available by following recommendations given earlier in this chapter.

Institutional Arrangements

Findings: Several different paths have been taken in different regions of the United States to manage fisheries data. ACCSP and FIS are providing (or plan to provide) centralized regional and national databases, respectively. In contrast, several commercial firms are providing value-added products to fishermen for operational purposes, including data for smaller areas and for specific fleets or fleet segments. Government data systems provide the potential benefits of access to all users, long-term storage, and nationwide standards for data collection, but are presently limited by the confidentiality of data and the often significant time lag between data collection and availability. Commercial systems can quickly provide very specific products and can establish whatever level of confidentiality is specified by a consortium of data contributors and financial supporters.

Recommendations: NMFS should encourage both centralized governmental and decentralized commercial data management, depending on the characteristics of the product needed and the capabilities of different sources to achieve the identified product characteristics. Centralized governmental data management can be achieved by continuing the development of the planned umbrella Fisheries Information System. At the same time, NMFS should identify which sources of data and information might best be managed by commercial firms and find ways to encourage such commercial development through Small Business Innovation Research grants, Cooperative Research And Development Agreements, and other programs.

Findings: Institutional arrangements for management of data are evolving toward systems of regional and national coordination and access. The situation in the Gulf of Mexico region, where funding was appropriated directly to the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, with no assurances of partnerships in system development and data access, could hinder the implementation of the FIS and degrade data quality.

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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Recommendations: The Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and other regions should follow the ACCSP lead in identifying needs and recognizing where efficiencies could be gained and quality could be improved by standardizing protocols and identifying regional concerns. Congress should ensure that systems are compatible and that the proper level of centralization or decentralization is achieved. The role of commissions in data management needs special attention. The overriding issue is whether a centralized, decentralized, or mixed approach to data management is most efficient and meets the needs of different levels of government. In relation to the commissions, NMFS should determine:

  • What are the benefits and costs to federal management of having the commissions involved in collecting and managing data from the states?

  • Would it be more cost-effective for the commissions, NMFS, or private contractors to manage state data?

  • Does the imposition of an additional administrative layer between the states and NMFS hinder data flow and imposition of standards for data collection and management?

Implementing Standards and Improving Quality Control

Findings: Standards of potential importance to fisheries data management range from commonly accepted data and information standards such as SQL, TCP/IP, Z39.50 searchable indices, CORBA, and Government FIPS standards for federal systems, to Internet standards (TCP/IP, HTTP). Metadata standards of potential importance include the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard4 for Digital Geospatial Metadata and the Biological Data Profile of the Content Standard of Digital Geospatial Metadata. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has established and promoted data standards to ensure compatibility of data management and use throughout the agency.

Recommendations: NMFS should follow standards set by the Federal Geographic Data Committee, so that its data are compatible with data from other agencies. This is of more than bureaucratic interest because several agencies collect data that could be useful to fisheries management if NMFS data and data from other agencies were in compatible formats. NMFS should follow the FWS example in the attention given to stewardship, promotion of, and accessibility to data standards through Web-based information sources. Any standards specific to fisheries should be set cooperatively among stakeholders, as practiced in other industries such as electronics and computers (e.g., by the American National Standards Institute). Computer hardware to be used onboard fishing vessels should comply with the NMEA-0183 standard for marine interfaces. NMFS should attempt to implement nationwide standard error-checking procedures.

Improving Technologies

Findings: Data entry without verification and manual transfer of logbook data to electronic systems are opportunities for errors to enter databases. Electronic logbooks are a promising new development being pursued in a NMFS project, jointly with the industry, in the Pacific Northwest region. VMSs are either being used or will be used soon in many U.S. fisheries.

Recommendations: NMFS and the regional councils should require double-entry and other verification techniques and continue to pursue the possibilities for electronic submission of logbook information. NMFS should implement VMSs in such a way that their value is much greater than the added financial and bureaucratic costs to fishermen.

4  

Data content standards provide semantic definitions of a set of objects and the relationships among them (see http://www.fgdc.gov).

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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Review

Findings: Many of the regional data management systems seem to have arisen and accreted from within states or regions without much external review or even periodic internal review.

Recommendations: NMFS and other agencies with data management responsibilities should have their systems reviewed by outside experts, considering both how well they meet their intended purpose and how well they adhere to relevant national and international standards.

IMPROVING DATA USE

Data in Stock Assessments

Findings: Fishermen often believe that data are mishandled or misrepresented to support hidden agendas. This perception may arise because fishermen do not understand or agree with the significance or scientific merit of a particular data collection method. However, some suspicion may be understandable because it is not always clear why some data are used and other data are ignored. Changes in assessment methods appear to occur frequently and such changes often come as a surprise to fishermen. In the case of summer flounder, commercial fishermen believe that NMFS surveys do not cover the full range of the species, information from commercial logbooks is ignored, sportfishing information is lacking in timeliness and quality, and changes are made in management actions before the consequences of previous actions are fully realized.

The Food and Agriculture Organization's report Precautionary Approach to Fisheries recommended that stock assessment processes should include “a process for assessment analysis that is transparent....” (FAO, 1995, p. 14), to improve the understanding and trust of stakeholders in assessments. Improving Fish Stock Assessments (NRC, 1998a) gave extensive advice for improving data use in terms of stock assessments:

  • A variety of assessment models should be applied to the same data.

  • Greater attention should be devoted to including independent estimates of natural mortality in assessment models.

  • Fish stock assessments should include realistic measures of the uncertainty in the output variables whenever possible.

  • New stock assessment techniques should be developed that can yield accurate and precise estimates, even though some of the data are incomplete, ambiguous, and variable. New techniques should also take into account the effects of environmental fluctuations on fish populations.

Recommendations: NMFS should make its stock assessment process more transparent and accessible to stakeholders. Prior to a major modification in any aspect of a stock assessment procedure, NMFS scientists should discuss proposed changes, and the reasons for them, with key user groups (i.e., fishermen, managers, and environmental advocacy groups). In general, NMFS should make the objectives of each survey clear, based on existing and anticipated management programs. NMFS should present assessment results with and without the proposed changes in stock assessment procedures, to show how the results differ and why the modifications make the assessment more realistic. When a survey design is modified, stakeholders should be informed of the changes and what they are intended to accomplish. Feedback from stakeholders should be acknowledged and addressed either by incorporating suggestions or by providing a reasonable rationale as to why the existing approach is most appropriate. Objectives of stock assessments should be communicated to stakeholders in a way that can be understood. NMFS should review the objectives of surveys periodically and publicly to ensure that surveys are designed correctly to meet these objectives.

The committee supports the recommendations of NRC (1998a) listed above. Institution of these measures would help fishery scientists and

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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managers understand fisheries better and understand the level of uncertainty more fully.

Access to Fisheries Data

Findings: It is difficult for individuals outside NMFS to access many types of fisheries data held by the agency, although NMFS does provide some basic queries for both commercial and recreational data on its Web site. Even data that do not need to be confidential can be difficult to find and use because they are kept on many different servers, do not feature user-friendly interfaces, and/or require special permission to access. Furthermore, data that are available are not always in a user-friendly or even a computer-friendly format. The Open GIS Consortium is well advanced in developing Web-based access to geospatial data and provides a ready standard for government data systems.

Recommendations: NMFS should develop and publicize (including on their Web site) a data access policy and instructions for accessing data, which may need to be different for different users because of confidentiality concerns. Standardized formats or access through standardized query programs should be enhanced so that any qualified user can access and use the data readily to answer questions that arise across data sets, and over a variety of scales within data sets. NMFS should participate actively in the interagency Open GIS Consortium and adhere to consortium guidelines in creating its systems for data management and access, so that its data are compatible with data from other federal agencies and accessible through the same means.

Fishery scientists in NMFS and academia should continue to have access to data from logbooks and observers without aggregation, if they agree to respect confidentiality of the data when reporting the results of their research. Access to data and metadata both within and outside NMFS should be encouraged because involving new people in data analysis can provide new perspectives about the data and a greater number and variety of users is more likely to reveal problems and errors in data sets, improving quality control.

Confidentiality

Findings: Confidentiality of fisheries data is restrictive to the point of hindering both research and management. State and federal restrictions to free access to data can hinder development of the kind of socioeconomic models that enable scientists and managers to determine whether regulations and management measures have been effective or to predict whether potential measures are likely to be effective. These policies neglect the rights of the public to have greater information about the use of public-trust resources. The privilege to exploit marine fish resources should carry some obligation on the part of fishermen, balancing reasonable protection of proprietary information against the large need of managers to be well informed and able to manage the fishery. For example, fishing in some areas may be detrimental to the environment. If information on fishing areas is confidential, interested stakeholders would have a difficult time determining how much fishing is being conducted in sensitive areas. Conversely, some level of confidentiality may be necessary to allow fishermen to maintain their businesses and to promote reporting of high-quality information about location, landings, and bycatch in some fisheries (e.g., reporting of halibut fishing information to the International Pacific Halibut Commission), information that might not be as accurate if it were not confidential. NMFS and its partners in development of new fishery data management systems (e.g., the ACCSP) have taken the approach of creating cooperative systems managed independently of NMFS and with access from all contributing partners. Because of such independence and broad participation, such systems may be more credible with all stakeholders than the current generation of systems that are less accessible to all stakeholders.

Coastal states (except Alaska) share the same data confidentiality standards, with the rule of thumb being that there must be three or more

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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reporting entities (e.g., vessels or seafood dealers) at any level of data summary before the data are not confidential and can be available to the public. Alaska requires a minimum of four or more reporting entities. On the U.S. West Coast, states have authority to collect logbook information and they set policies on confidentiality. States use a common (NMFS-designed) logbook and store the data with NMFS, but NMFS must respect state data policies. For some states, NMFS is not allowed full access to all state data; for example, Alaska restricts access to confidential data, except to selected NMFS personnel for stock assessment and law enforcement purposes.

Two recommendations of NMFS (undated) that are particularly relevant to this report are that the next reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act should (1) establish a sunset period on confidentiality of fisheries data and (2) eliminate existing prohibitions on collecting economic and financial statistics from marine fisheries.

Recommendations: Congress and the states should re-evaluate their existing policies on data confidentiality, while respecting the rights of fishermen as small business owners as much as possible. The assertion that fisheries information has intrinsic value proprietary to the fisherman should be examined in light of the mandate to NMFS and the regional councils to manage fisheries as public-trust resources. Specific consideration should be given to establishing sunset periods for data confidentiality for all fisheries data, when the information no longer retains significant proprietary value. The proprietary periods should be determined for each fishery in a public forum including scientists, managers, fishermen, and environmental advocates, and should be included in the fishery management plan for each fishery, as each fishery is unique. Sunset provisions for data confidentiality should be developed by government (states and federal) working with data providers. The effects of the loss of confidentiality on precision and bias in logbook and other reporting should be considered in setting the proprietary period for each type of data.

Matching Management to Data Available

Findings: The effectiveness of fisheries management depends on the use of timely data of suitable accuracy and precision to provide answers to questions about a stock's current status, desired future status, and actions needed to achieve the desired status. Greater precision and accuracy often require greater resources for sampling and analysis. Moreover, some sources of inaccuracy and imprecision may be difficult to eradicate even with unlimited expenditures. Thus, the question for management should become: What level of inaccuracy and imprecision in advice and hence in management is tolerable if a particular management regime is to achieve its goals? The answer to this question clearly depends on the management regime chosen and its objectives. If managers are not prepared to pay for the needed precision or if that precision may not be achievable at any price, they may have to modify either their management objectives or management tools. As demonstrated in Chapter 3, management and data needs are closely related.

Recommendations: The regional fishery management councils and NMFS should work together to match management to data that are available at a reasonable cost. Such an analysis will depend on completion of the review of the costs and benefits of fisheries and data collection recommended earlier in this chapter.

Cooperation and Communication

Findings: Part of the image problem shared by NMFS and the regional councils is lack of communication on a level that is informative and appealing to stakeholders. Many stakeholder groups are affected by the collection and use of fisheries data, including commercial and recreational fishermen, and environmental advocacy groups. Few stakeholder groups have a good understanding of why fisheries data are collected and used in certain ways. Greater outreach to

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

these audiences to improve their understanding and the perceived credibility of fisheries data is needed. User groups need to know about the information contained in a data set, even though the analysis for which it is used may be complex.

It is important for scientists and managers to improve their communication of the data available and to make such data available to stakeholders more readily and in a user-friendly form. When this is not achieved, a lack of trust develops between those who control access to data and those who cannot gain access. In many cases, disagreement of fishermen with the results of stock assessments can be traced to NMFS not explaining the sources of variability in the data and the uncertainty of the models being used.

In the current fisheries management system, several activities occur sequentially:

  • Data are collected.

  • Stock assessments are conducted.

  • Management recommendations are made.

  • Fish are allocated among user groups.

  • Fishing regulations are designed and implemented.

For individuals, this process determines either their opportunity to make a living (commercial and charter sectors) or their ability to engage in their recreational activities. When their income or their favorite pastime is threatened, people respond by attempting to manipulate the management process at every stage. No amount of communication or transparency of the process will eliminate these conflicts among users. But a more open and innovative assessment process could improve the credibility of the resulting assessments and perhaps move harvester conflicts away from the stock assessments to other stages.

Recommendations: NMFS should improve its outreach to specific stakeholder audiences by seeking (1) perspectives from stakeholders regarding what information they would find useful and how best to get it to them and (2) perspectives from data gatherers and stock assessment scientists regarding what is important for user groups to know about the quality and limitations of data. NMFS and councils should ensure that stakeholders feel they are getting all the information they need to make decisions and understand how councils use data to make management decisions. Such outreach could take place in conjunction with meetings of the regional councils and/or at special meetings convened by NMFS in port areas. Outreach events would be one way to communicate information (and uncertainty) to target audiences in person. Another complementary approach would be to make data more accessible through Web-page queries and more sophisticated forms of graphical data presentation. Several efforts by NMFS and other parts of NOAA—providing the ability to query aggregated commercial and recreational data through the NMFS Web site and data visualizations provided through the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory Web site—are a first step in the next generation of data access. NMFS could use its new communication experts for this purpose, remembering that communication is a two-way process, not merely a one-way dissemination of information. Increased cooperation and communication between NMFS and industry is crucial for improving the collection and understanding of fisheries data. However, it is important that NMFS conduct all activities with industry in an open manner to avoid the appearance of collusion.

NMFS should improve its use of data visualization to communicate scientific information to the public, moving away from display in tabular form to more graphic displays, including plots, maps, and pictures, without lowering the quality of its data or presentations. The accuracy of the information available needs to be conveyed (e.g., maps are not always equally accurate over the entire range displayed). The methods and assumptions used for data summarization or analysis should be included with the data and analyses.

In communicating data and results of analyses, NMFS should tailor its approaches to different audiences that may require different levels of detail. It would be useful for the public to see

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

what the different data sources (commercial, recreational, and survey) indicate about a fish stock, including overlays on maps to illustrate geographic coverage. Such communication should avoid statistical and other jargon so that non-specialists, fishermen, and the public can fully understand the significance of the information. NMFS should consider using state Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service units more often to help with outreach.

One innovative and useful approach is to conduct fishery assessment and management simulations with real fisheries data in a workshop setting to explore with commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, environmental advocates, and others how assessments are developed and how management decisions are based on assessments. This approach has been used by several fishery scientists to provide opportunities to focus attention of stakeholders on the models and data, rather than on each other (Holling, 1978; Walters, 1986, 1994). In using this approach, it is important that the objectives of the workshops be very specific and that they be conducted outside NMFS, to provide an objective mediator. Simulation workshops should explore issues such as the following:

  • What are the management implications of using random stratified methods for surveys versus going where fishermen know there are concentrations of fish?

  • Why are survey gear and methods kept constant over time?

  • Why is it difficult to use short-term charter vessels for trawl surveys?

  • Does it make a difference in setting TACs whether a decline in recruitment, biomass, or catches are caused by fishing versus climate, habitat loss, pollution, or other environmental factors?

  • How do unreported landings and bycatch affect assessments and subsequent management?

  • How would observations of fishermen change the analyses if included? What kind of observations could and could not be included?

In each case, the goal should not be to justify NMFS procedures, but to expose the assumptions and procedures of modeling and TAC setting to the stakeholder communities and explore together what might be the consequences of changing assumptions. Such an activity might bring new insights to NMFS scientists, council members, commercial and recreational fishermen, environmental advocates, and others, and could indicate to NMFS changes needed in its assumptions or procedures. Preparation for simulation workshops should include thoughtful analysis and development of techniques and software. NMFS should seek assistance for such an effort from other parts of NOAA (e.g., the Joint Research Institutes and National Sea Grant College Program) and other sources.

NMFS should also create, and make available to the public, manuals describing survey operations that specify survey design, tow time, gear used, and other important factors, such as is done for West Coast fisheries (Anonymous, undated; Munro and Hoff, 1995; AFSC, 1998; Wilkins et al., 1998). NMFS should identify which data sources (including which individual surveys) are included in each stock assessment and what weight is given to each. If the weighting of data sources changes over time, NMFS should communicate what criteria are used to change weightings.

Uncertainty in Data, Models, and Model Outputs

Findings: Despite the significant effort that goes into designing and implementing fishery surveys to sample individual fish to characterize populations, survey data still usually enter assessments as point values with no corresponding estimate of uncertainty, such as variance. The result is an assessment that gives each observation equal value, whereas in reality some reflect more precise and/or more accurate information than others. This approach decreases incentives for improving data quality. One reason for not including uncertainty in models may be that it is

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

difficult to distinguish among the different types of uncertainty entering an assessment model. Uncertainty can enter assessments through observation error, natural variation in the environment (process uncertainty), model misspecification, and uncertainty that arises in management implementation and institutional interactions. Another reason that uncertainty is sometimes not acknowledged is that managers and/or scientists are concerned that fishermen might use uncertainty as justification for less conservative regulations.

Recommendations: NMFS should take stronger steps to characterize uncertainty in their assessments and present uncertainty to fishery managers. This may involve an expansion of existing approaches, especially for key species or species complexes, to include a better representation of the level of each kind of uncertainty listed above. Recognizing that the added computational effort may slow the assessment process, the committee recommends that NMFS prioritize the types of uncertainty to address first, moving on to lower priority uncertainties as time and resources permit. Some sources of uncertainty might be determined less frequently and during model development, whereas others should be included with every new assessment. Approximations (e.g., Gaussian approximation using the Hessian approach) might be used for annual updates, whereas better and more complete estimates (e.g., Monte Carlo, Markov Chain, or full bootstrap procedures) might be carried out as assessments are reviewed or when new assessments are developed. NMFS must also decide how it wants to evaluate and present information on variability and uncertainty in a way that helps and does not hinder management. It is important that a case be made for why significant uncertainty should compel managers to be cautious, rather than giving a signal to stakeholders that stock assessment scientists do not know the condition of the stock and thus become an excuse for inaction or for selection of TAC levels that are too high. Presentations should include information about the risk involved in different TAC levels that could be set.

Review

Findings: The information content of an assessment, namely the data and the model structure and assumptions, should be subject to periodic peer review. This serves two purposes. The first is to have independent scientists scrutinize the process and the product to give public assurance of its scientific integrity, or to identify problems in the analyses. The second is to inject new ideas and research directions into the process that reflect the current state of the art. NMFS and the councils have experimented with different methods of peer review. Currently NMFS, in cooperation with the councils, has several ad hoc committees that review completed assessments prior to submission to a council. Two such committees are the Stock Assessment Review Committee (SARC), which reviews NMFS' East Coast assessments, and the STock Assessment Review (STAR) panel, which reviews NMFS' West Coast assessments. A standing body of advisory scientists called the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) also exists for each council. In addition, several plan teams exist for each council, but their primarily role is to provide management guidance rather than provide a review per se. This peer review system, as it currently operates, has some shortcomings. The SARC and STAR processes, although comprehensive, are not truly independent because the review scientists are typically NMFS employees from other regions and state scientists from the region of concern. The SSC, on the other hand, although generally showing greater independence, at least in terms of composition (although NMFS scientists are on these committees also), does not have the opportunity to examine the issues in as fine a detail as the SARC/STAR panels or as, for example, the committee has in the course of its review. Together, the SSCs and SARC/STAR groups represent the thoroughness and independence needed in a review, but deeper consideration of this process might lead to a more constructive framework. NMFS is experimenting with a Center for Independent Experts to conduct independent reviews, but this approach most often has used single external reviewers rather than teams.

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
×

Recommendations: Congress should recognize the need for both a scientific assessment and evaluation process, and a thorough and objective review system. The committee acknowledges that NMFS has taken great effort to provide the means for establishing the scientific integrity of its work, but the committee also recognizes that it is too much to ask NMFS to objectively evaluate that same work. A greater degree of independence in the peer-review process is needed in order to maintain the integrity and scientific credibility of the NMFS assessments. To do this, the scientific products, such as the assessments produced by NMFS and others, should be peer reviewed by scientists who are not directly involved in the assessments or work directly for NMFS (scientists from state fishery agencies could be involved). Because of the limited number of stock assessment scientists outside NMFS and the large number of assessments produced each year, not every assessment should be reviewed each year, but every assessment should be externally reviewed on a regular basis, for example, every three to five years. The SSC could be considered the appropriate independent body for this review, if the SSC is made up of informed but otherwise independent scientists, but time is often a limiting factor for these volunteers in their deliberations leading to council advice. The committee therefore suggests that regional councils consider supporting a stock assessment scientist on staff. Such a scientist could be assigned the task of organizing assessment peer reviews while highlighting issues of scientific and managerial concern under the direction of the SSC and the council executive director. In this way, NMFS could present and defend their work in a public forum and the councils would be able to review this work in an objective fashion. Another vehicle that could be used for such independent reviews is the Center for Independent Experts that is funded by NMFS but which operates independently from NMFS.

RESEARCH NEEDS

Finding: Stock assessment science and fisheries management are still developing fields. Improvements in each are still needed and will be fueled by continued research and development.

Recommendations: Congress should support and NMFS should continue to fund research to improve our ability to characterize fish stocks quantitatively and manage them in the context of the important but sometimes conflicting goals of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its National Standards. NMFS should fund both internal and external research (biological, economic, and social) relating to:

  • developing methods for evaluating ecological benefits of fish stocks and fisheries;

  • developing new methods for stock assessment;

  • minimizing data fouling and misreporting;

  • testing adaptive sampling for surveys, including both NMFS and industry data collection;

  • testing electronic logbooks and VMSs that offer value-added features to fishermen;

  • linking environmental, economic, and social data, and climate forecasts to stock assessments;

  • studying the feeding habits and the distribution and types of prey and predators of important non-commercial species, to understand the functioning of the marine ecosystems affected by fishing activities;

  • understanding the economic and social motivations of harvesters so that greater use can be made of fishery-dependent data;

  • improving design of recreational fishing surveys; and

  • conducting stock assessments combining recreational and commercial data with very different error and uncertainty structures.

Emphasis should be given to research exploring the relationships between different types of regulatory approaches and fishermen's attitudes and behaviors toward fish harvest and data reporting. Research should also identify the most important incentives and disincentives that could be used to promote accurate reporting.

Suggested Citation:"Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2000. Improving the Collection, Management, and Use of Marine Fisheries Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9969.
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Congress has promoted fisheries science for over a century and its involvement in fisheries management took a great leap forward with passage of the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976. In the past decade, Congress has requested advice from the National Research Council (NRC) on both national issues (e.g., individual fishing quotas and community development quotas) and the assessments related to specific fisheries (Northeast groundfish). This report was produced, in part, in response to another congressional request, this time related to the assessments of the summer flounder stocks along the East Coast of the United States. Following the initial request, the NRC, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and congressional staff agreed to broaden the study into a more comprehensive review of marine fisheries data collection, management, and use.

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