West Coast E-fishticket
In the Northwest Region the states have existing fish ticket programs (actually 26 of them). These were originally developed for revenue purposes, but the fish tickets have become multi-purpose documents, functioning as a receipt between buyer and seller, as a record of catch (and sometimes of effort) for fisheries management, as documentation of participation in a fishery, as a record of gross profit for calculation of crew shares, as documentation of value for economic analysis, and of course the original purpose of government tax records. Examples of state fish tickets include whiting in Washington and Salmon in California. The information captured on fish tickets has been standardized to the point that PACFIN can aggregate fish ticket data from each state into a regional database.
Whiting fisheries in the Northwest Region have been operating under an Exempted Fishing Permit through the 2008 season (Final Rule to Establish Catch Accounting Requirements). Beginning in 2009 Amendment 15 will identify qualified vessels for a whiting endorsement to their limited entry trawl permit. The whiting EFP and Amendment 15 recognize a need to track bycatch on a near real-time basis, and specify electronic reporting, or an e-ticket program, as the mechanism. This e-ticket reporting is in parallel with the state's traditional paper fish tickets. PSMFC is currently developing this e-ticket program, emulating and coexisting with state fish ticket programs, capturing data into the PACFIN database directly from participating processors without going through the states (the states may subsequently data-enter from the paper copies into their own local databases, or, they may download data from PACFIN to complete their local databases.) This parallel approach is emulating state programs with no change in management approach, data elements, etc.and allows states flexibility and time to adopt at their convenience.
Near to real-time information on catch and bycatch of overfished species is required as an element of National Standard 1 (NS1). For the Whiting fishery an e-ticket provides the most effective mechanism for acquiring near real-time catch and bycatch information. Fish ticket record-keeping and reporting regulations require processor and vessel operator signatures for accountability. An e-signature feature is required to make e-ticket reporting (without a corresponding paper document for signatures) feasible. By near real-time we mean an elapsed time of less than 48 hours from the completion of the vessel offload to data analysis in the agencies catch and bycatch monitoring systems.
The trawl fleet (whiting) is most technology sophisticated fleet in the Northwest Region, but, by regulation fish tickets are reported by processors. Whiting processors are large permanent shoreside facilities which will be completely comfortable with this type of technology. The current whiting fishery fish ticket volume is approximately 40 boats for up to 20 days of fishing, for a ceiling of approximately 800 transactions. The potential of e-ticket transactions would eventually approach the total volume of fish tickets on the West Coast.