Trawl electronic monitoring bill clears Legislature

The Legislature has passed House Bill 117, which includes language authorizing Alaska's fish and game commissioner to require electronic monitoring for vessels operating in state trawl fisheries.

The bill now goes to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for his signature.

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, offered the language. He said in a recent Facebook post that electronic monitoring will "allow the state to better manage our fisheries through better bycatch data, monitoring compliance, and catch and discard information."

The bill includes provisions meant to limit impacts to trawlers. For example, the bill says vessel owners won't be required to "purchase or install electronic monitoring equipment beyond what is already required" for vessels in federally managed fisheries.

Juneau watch

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, says he added an amendment for the state fish and game commissioner to "institute and oversee an electronic monitoring system for trawl vessels that participate in state fisheries."

More in this Facebook post.

A human, or a camera?

The National Marine Fisheries Service is offering vessel owners a chance to avoid having to carry a fishery observer in 2014.

The agency plans to exempt up to 14 boats that agree to take part in a pilot project to test electronic monitoring systems.

More details in this letter.

For background, check out our previous post.

Volunteer? Who, me?

We heard quite a bit of bellyaching when the North Pacific observer program expanded this year to cover new fleets, including halibut boats.

One complaint was that more should have been done to develop an alternative to the inconvenience and cost of having a human observer ride along on small boats.

Surely electronic monitoring — onboard cameras — could keep tabs on catch and bycatch, the critics said.

OK, fine.

Now read this letter from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to several commercial fishing groups.

The letter says a pilot project has been set up to test electronic monitoring systems.

The trouble is, not many commercial fishermen have volunteered to take part in the project so far, the letter says.

The council wants a viable electronic monitoring alternative on the water as soon as practicable, and the volunteer pilot program is "vital to the realization of this goal," the letter says.