1. So these are the Highest numbers you can find?
2. Doesn't surprise seeing as how the shore based catcher vessels (which aren't include in your graph really) are observed 30% and they can easily avoid showing what they are really doing out there.
3. Bring out the 30% observed numbers and you can see where the games are played.
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1. Not so hasty there. These figures are a sort of the NMFS spreadsheet. They are sorted for the highest bycatch recorded by observers in the fleet of draggers operating in the Gulf of Alaska for the week of column one. If you don't think 875 Chinook for four observed tows isn't high, you are an idiot.
2. Catcher processors are shown in red. It is easy, for the most part, to see who is a shore delivering (shore based) dragger; just look at the number of observed tows. Few observations are shore deliver draggers (in purple). Under the new observer program, only about 13% of shore delivering draggers are observed. Since the observers are alone on the dragger and are working twelve hours a day, some would argue that is really only 6.5% observed, because draggers may operate 24 hours a day. Night fishing is the dirtiest, and should be outlawed, or have two observers.
3. See #2. 6.5% observed. There are no 30% figures, stay informed. But if the PacStar were observed 100% could they have 875 Chinook X 50 or 100 tows (4,375 or 8750), who can say? Without 100% observed dragging, expect your Chinook and halibut and crab to continue to diminish. Below are the top 61 bycatch draggers in the Gulf, year to date.
The preponderance of the data suggests that 100% observed draggers (catcher processors) have the highest bycatch rates because they have few 'tools' with which to hide their dirty fishing. If all draggers 100% observed, the bycatch rates would be shockingly higher than this poor data. The occulting of data by draggers with a wink from NMFS is a continuing outrage.
The preponderance of the data suggests that 100% observed draggers (catcher processors) have the highest bycatch rates because they have few 'tools' with which to hide their dirty fishing. If all draggers 100% observed, the bycatch rates would be shockingly higher than this poor data. The occulting of data by draggers with a wink from NMFS is a continuing outrage.
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| Shoreside draggers in purple, catcher processors in red. |
There are more but this should be demonstrative of the point.
Keep yer flippers wet.
6 comments:
I was mainly looking at the halibut numbers because they are easier to work with because they are a % of the catch. Like you said the shore based draggers show up easily because of their low number of observed tows. That is the point I always try to make is that they aren't being observed during their regular fishing time. No one really knows how much halibut gets caught each trip arrow tooth or sole fishing.
Hardly any shore based bottom trawl observations. What's the story there?
1:48, No. They are more difficult to deal with, not easier. As a % of the catch, you can not calculate how much is killed because you don't know the tonnage of the catch. So the % tells you very little. It would be more telling if NMFS named the number of individual halibut taken. That could have meaning. the main thing to remember is that this is all designed to hide from us the true destruction taking place.
A large swath of data is missing here... How come only a few shore based boats have made observed bottom trips? Easy to let one person get a good observation in an area then take your observer to a different reporting area for your coverage?
2:46, That is what we protest as 'gaming.' NPFMC has given sector splits of Gulf fish based on inaccurate and false data and now NMFS has restructured the failed observer program and made everything worse. Welcome to my world. Wiglaf.
It will be interesting to see how long it takesbefore halibut biomass falls off the cliff. Someone once said after clearing the deck during their first arrow tooth trip that if this kept up It would only be a few years before halibut were endangered. That was a while ago.
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