Electronic monitoring in fisheries

Abstract

In the context of the landing obligation under the European Common Fisheries Policy, electronic monitoring (EM) is often presented as one of the solutions to fully document catches. EM includes video monitoring to record the catch handling process on board the vessels. This study evaluated the efficacy of EM for cod (Gadus morhua) catches on vessels in a mixed bottom-trawl fishery and tested the hypothesis that cod catches are difficult to detect with video monitoring, specifically in catches with large volumes of bycatch. In 2011, a catch quota pilot study started for cod in the Dutch bottom-trawl fishery in which EM was used as an audit system to review the consistency of reported cod catches. Eleven vessels joined the pilot study on a voluntary basis. Participants received a 30% increase in individual quota for cod and were compensated with extra effort in days at sea. In return, all cod catches were counted against their cod quota. This mixed bottom-trawl fishery differs from fisheries where EM was proven to be a successful method, e.g. hook and line or single-species fisheries with low bycatch volumes. And we conclude that distinguishing small numbers of cod in catches of mixed bottom-trawl fisheries is difficult because there is a low correlation between logbook and video data (Pearson r=0.17). We expect similar difficulty in other mixed demersal trawl fisheries with large bycatch volumes, when similar-looking species are targeted. Meanwhile, implementing a landing obligation will pose large challenges for fisheries with large volumes of bycatch. Limitations in the applicability of EM to control one of the most common types of fisheries in Europe will be a burden on the implementation of the European landing obligation. Improved protocols and technical adaptations may reduce some of the limitations encountered in this study. CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 3Changes in fishing behaviour of two fleets under fully documented catch quota management: Same rules, different outcomes

Challenges in the Assessment of Bycatch: Postmortem Findings in Harbor Porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) Retrieved From Gillnets

“…The state of decomposition of this animal reflects an animal that was dead for a longer time, at least exceeding 32 hours. Hence, occasional claims of fishermen that porpoises were already dead before they were bycaught 16 may sometimes be true.…”

Fully documented fisheries : Final report

“…In other words, with this technology in place real-time catch recording could be achieved by a computer directly counting the fish passing the cameras and only generating a list of species in the catch as output. This would mean that the transmission of large amounts of video footage from a vessel at sea to servers on land, to allow for further data analysis will not be necessary anymore (Michelin et al, 2018;van Helmond, 2021).…”