A critical business driver for electronic reporting and e-signature in the Whiting fishery is reduced cycle time for reporting catch and bycatch data to management agencies. For the Whiting fishery to continue under current laws, fisheries managers must be able to ensure that catch of Pacific Whiting and bycatch of incidentally caught species (including overfished groundfish species and Chinook salmon) do not exceed harvest guidelines and bycatch limits. Rapid, near real-time electronic reporting by fisheries processors has been shown to reduce the cycle time for analysis of catch and bycatch from many weeks to a few days.
Most of the other benefits from enabling e-signatures gained by NMFS and NMFS' end users are qualitative in nature. In large part, the benefits to e-signatures accrue from making it easier for end users to report or file electronically thereby minimizing paper reporting and filing of information. Some of the following benefits apply generally to the use of e-signatures in the shift from paper to electronic filing and some are specific to using e-signatures to improve the management of Whiting fisheries in the Northwest Region.
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