It is well understood that high quality data inputs are essential for proper management of fishery stocks. These inputs come from a variety of sources with the goal of covering as much of a particular fishery as possible. Fishery dependent catch and effort data derived from self-reported catch and effort logbooks is one such input that has undergone significant changes over the last decade as new technologies are applied to data collection, primarily in the form of electronic logbooks (ELBs). Bluefin Data, LLC (BFD) and The Billfish Foundation (TBF) have partnered on a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) funded project to streamline mandatory reporting for captains, anglers, and commercial fishers while at the same time providing them with the opportunity to participate in the TBF billfish tagging program. The project demonstrates how this model can be expanded for future collaborative research projects, including shark and dolphin depredation studies, discard mortality studies, physical oceanography data collection, and academic research projects, among others.
Fishery Electronic Logbooks
ELBs have numerous advantages over traditional paper logbooks, including increased data specificity, real time data validation, and increased data throughput. They are now more easily deployed at sea than when the concept first appeared. Furthermore, they have the capability to significantly increase the amount of data that is collected while at the same time reducing the burden of data collection.
This increased data collection capability has not gone unnoticed by federal and state fishery agencies. Federal and state permitted anglers, captains, and commercial harvesters throughout the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast are subject to numerous regulatory reporting requirements. A review of the recent National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) electronic technologies implementation plans shows a desire to expand ELB use throughout US waters. The expansion of these programs, however, can lead to ‘conflicts’ across various sectors and agencies. Several states (e.g., Maine and South Carolina) have existing electronic reporting requirements for their commercial and charter-for-hire sectors respectively. Expansion of federal programs often leads to scenarios where dually-permitted state and federal vessels are subject to multiple sets of requirements that must be satisfied by vessels and captains to remain in good standing with the various agencies.
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Some effort has been made by federal and state agencies to streamline the reporting process to some extent, but this effort currently fails to cover the full extent of electronic reporting (ER) requirements throughout the region. Additionally, fishers within these groups are often eager to participate in collaborative research and citizen science projects they feel are important to them and to their respective industries. These research programs have their own set of reporting requirements and data standards, adding to the growing list that now must be considered by fishers. So, as more and more is asked of fishers in terms of reporting, the inherent potential of ELBs – despite their proven benefit – decreases.
However, fishery catch and effort data collection standards among these programs often overlap. Outlying questions aimed at gathering specific information such as the length of a certain species, the use of barotrauma descending devices, or certain socioeconomic questions center around standard catch and effort questions. Given the multiple requirements from multiple agencies and the possibility of additional research or citizen science participation, the challenge becomes implementing requirements into a singular experience that maintains the data quality expected from the agencies/researchers, while reducing the overall reporting burden. AND, if this is successful, how is relevant data shared with end users in a way that respects the independent data collection standards of the respective agencies.
The Billfish Foundation Partnership
There were several possible combinations of ELB requirements that could have served as a test case for building a form that could streamline the reporting process for multiple agencies. However, what eventually came to fruition was taking the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) recreational (Charter for-hire/private angler) requirements and incorporating them across multiple forms, specifically the NMFS’s Southeast Regional For-hire Electronic Reporting (SEFHIER) program and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Charter For-hire (SCDNR) program. The latter of which already includes the federal for hire requirements. Though these integrations satisfied many of the ‘multiple agency requirements’ issues we were trying to address, we still wanted to further integrate data collection questions from research programs that were of interest to the fishing community.
It’s with this objective in mind that we partnered with The Billfish Foundation to integrate and expand upon their billfish tagging program. The data collected by anglers and received by TBF helps analysts learn more about this family of fishes (a majority of what we know about billfish comes from tagging). TBF has worked for more than 35 years to support and conduct research that assesses billfish stocks, identifies billfish threats, and quantifies socio economic contributions of billfish. TBF’s Tag and Release Program is popular within the recreational community, hosting a data sampling size of more than 290,000 data reports and collecting information related to species, location, fish dimensions, gear type, hook type, fish conditions, and even crew and boat details.
With regulatory reporting requirements identified and volunteer reporting program partnerships in place, we could now work to meet the objectives of the project. Bluefin Data would work to:
- build a singular reporting form that could be used to satisfy the HMS recreational reporting requirements while at the same time allow for private recreational anglers to participate in TBF billfish tagging program,
- integrate the HMS and TBF requirements into existing for-hire regulatory reporting programs like SEFHIER and SCDNR,
- and lay the foundational development work needed to incorporate other volunteer or research data collection programs into any number of regulatory reporting programs moving forward.
Developing an Efficient Integrated Reporting Form
Bluefin Data’s first step in the process was to leverage its principal software, VESL, to build a reporting form that merged the HMS and TBF requirements into a singular form. There is significant overlap in the data collection fields between HMS and TBF.
There are two main independent activities when developing a new form within the VESL application: 1) configuring data collection fields and logic that will give the application its look and feel while providing basic data quality assurance measures and 2) developing data export procedures that distribute data appropriately while conducting data validations to ensure export of high-quality data, compliant with end-users requirements.
An essential step in developing a form with fields from independent agencies or organizations is to ensure the quality of data being collected is consistent with those agency and organization specifications. There are similar fields between HMS and TBF in terms of language and/or data quality that needed clarifying between the two groups. A significant component in the first half of the project focused on understanding these possible differences in data quality.
This must be applied when considering any integration of multiple requirements into a singular form. Not only should it be clear what is being asked of the industry when collecting the data, but also ensuring the data meets continuity standards upon export. VESL has the ability to take the collected data and export it in the desired format. Unit conversions, separate agency codes and nomenclature, as well as specific data fields can be tailor exported. This specificity in export ensures that data is shared in a way that guarantees privacy and confidentiality among agencies and with partnering organizations.
Implementation Plans
The example above highlights some of the effort taking place to build the first iteration of a multi-agency/organization reporting form. Recreationally permitted HMS anglers are required to submit catch and effort data when relevant HMS species are landed, or when a Bluefin Tuna is discarded dead. TBF data collection requirements are similar but don’t require the landed or discarded dead qualifier to submit the data. Currently, any HMS angler who wishes to participate in the TBF tagging program and has HMS reporting requirements must do so in two separate places. VESL’s TBF form now allows these anglers to log and submit the data directly to TBF without added burden. Required HMS data goes to the NMFS HMS division, and optional TBF data is sent to TBF.
The completion of this first iteration lays the foundation for further expansion into other sectors. The South Atlantic SEFHIER program requires all federally permitted Charter-for-hire vessels complete an ELB for each trip taken within a given week. These federal vessels that possess an HMS permit in addition to their reef charter permits, are required to collect the same HMS data mentioned earlier. Further still, if these vessels wish to participate in the TBF tagging program, those requirements must be fulfilled as well. In this scenario, there are possibly three separate instances where a fisher is filling out the same information for a single HMS interaction. The integrated reporting ability within VESL will soon expand to this sector, overlaying HMS and TBF requirements into the already existing SEFHIER form.
Once a set of requirements has been developed within VESL, applying those across other forms is a relatively quick process. The next phases of this project will implement TBF requirements into sectors that are likely to have billfish and HMS interactions, like the commercial sector. Atlantic pelagic longline vessels have a higher likelihood than most of catching previously tagged billfishes and tunas. Integrating TBF fields within the upcoming Southeast Fishery Science Center (SEFSC) commercial logbook gives commercial fishers the option to efficiently report this data within the required reporting framework. A major benefit of this project is the potential to expand this tagging program efficiently into other sectors that have not traditionally participated in the tagging program. This could allow for new insights into this fishery from underrepresented sectors. As ELB’s expand across the US, these requirements can be included in newly developed forms complementing TBF’s worldwide data collection program.
Critical Conservation Concerns
Though this project centers around expanding TBF’s tagging program as a test case, the foundational goal of this project was to develop ER infrastructure within VESL to collect data on critical conservation concerns (CCCs) that can be quickly deployed within any number of mandatory reporting programs. This infrastructure has the ability to expand fishery research programs including citizen science programs in an efficient way that reduces the reporting burden placed on fishers while providing data on CCCs. Fishers that partner with academic research projects can have those questions included in the reporting form. Form fields that observe and report on red tide events, endangered species strandings, seagrass die off, depredation events, and/or descending device uses can be included within regulatory forms.
Federal agencies often require a subset of permitted vessels to report on discards or socioeconomic factors. Regulatory agencies sometimes conduct research on the use of specific gear in designated areas for a specific fleet that require additional data collection. Requirements that meet the needs of all these CCCs can now be implemented within a form in VESL. We believe this has the potential to significantly increase the ability to collect specific fishery data that not only benefits stock assessments but that is also important to them, while realizing the burden reduction potentials that ELBs possess.
Regulatory Considerations
It is important to note there are significant regulatory and privacy considerations that must be made when implementing these voluntary and optional data collection programs. The main considerations surround the regulations outlined in the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). In short, the federal government has to go through a lengthy process to make additions or significant edits to any form where fields are deemed mandatory. Therefore, any fields that are added to a form within VESL that fall outside of these mandatory fields must be considered ‘optional’. More specifically, users wishing to see these fields would need to opt-in to have the ability to view additional data questions. In terms of opted-in programs, if any integrated field is left blank by the user, that blank field cannot prevent them from submitting the form. This is important from a compliance standpoint and from a data timeliness standpoint. Reporting program requirements often vary in reference to when the fisher is required to submit the data from a trip. That can even be before the boat hits the dock or often before the catch is offloaded. It’s imperative the fisher be allowed to submit required data no matter the completion percentage of the optional fields.
BFD takes two approaches in ensuring this is accomplished. VESL has the ability to show and hide fields based on a number of classification types. These include items such as permit type, gear or species selected, or any combination of variables. In the case of the TBF tagging program, BFD allows anglers to ‘opt-in’ and ‘opt-out’ to viewing these additional fields. This opt-in process can include information about the optional fields and about the project, giving the user the info needed to make a decision if they want to participate or not.
In cases where a group of anglers or vessels is working exclusively with a researcher or when agencies require additional data (discards, economic) VESL can assign a classification to those selected vessels or users. These classifications can also include an effective range that sets the duration for how long the fields are visible. In these instances, the information about the project and fields are often handled by the researchers and agencies directly. Though VESL can remind the users of what the fields are when they interact with the form.
Conclusion
Federally permitted Highly Migratory Species recreational anglers can now report required catch and effort data, and optional billfish conservation data within the same electronic form with relevant data being exported to separate destinations.
Results from this project highlight strategies to address broad regulations like the Paperwork Reduction Act and privacy clauses outlined in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Lessons learned from this project highlight the need to involve regulatory agencies early in the project design process and include opt-in language that is clearly defined before any collaborative research efforts.
Federal and state permitted anglers, captains, and commercial harvesters throughout the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast are subject to numerous regulatory reporting requirements. Fishers within these groups often are eager to participate in collaborative research and citizen science projects they feel are important to them and to their respective industries. Well-designed requirements can integrate specific research projects or expand regulatory questions within a single data collection form in VESL, significantly reducing the data collection burden placed on fishers and allowing individuals to participate in new and innovative research opportunities.
Brett Pierce is the Director of Strategy at Bluefin Data, LLC working to set science and policy strategy for the company. Before joining Bluefin, Brett was a contractor within the Fishery Statistics Division at the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, FL focusing on improving fishery dependent data pathways.
TJ Morrell is the Science & Education Specialist for The Billfish Foundation, aiding in outreach, data analysis, and program advancement. He joined TBF in 2022 after working for nine years with NOAA in their observer and commercial logbook programs.
“Projects in the Field” is a series of independently produced articles profiling work supported by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Electronic Monitoring & Reporting Grant Program, and is meant to raise awareness and support for these important initiatives.
