Electronic monitoring systems (EMS) on vessels is not new -- some fisheries have been implementing cameras on boats for years as a way to reduce bycatch and prevent poaching.

In Eastern Canadian fisheries, however, it's only been a topic of conversation in the past couple of years, said Ecology Action Centre's Chelsey Karbowski, and fishermen there are hesitant to use it.

"The industry perspective for the technology is highly different when it comes to the west coast vs. the east coast," Karbowski told IntraFish.

In British Columbia, electronic monitoring systems are "heavily integrated" in the groundfish fleet and used as a way to deal with bycatch of rockfish in particular. For Western Canada's crab fleet, fishermen themselves pushed for electronic monitoring when they came across internal issues with crab poaching.

Both in the US and Canada, providers of EMS technology aren't abundant, and Karbowski said it helped that the only two Canadian companies to provide it -- Ecotrust Canada and Archipelago Marine Research -- were located on the west coast.

On the east coast of Canada, Karbowski said, an informational session on how to use the EMS systems turned sour when some fishermen expressed distrust in having cameras onboard their vessels.

"We've got nothing to hide, we're not keeping nothing secret," fisherman Wilford Smith said at the meeting, according to the CBC, saying he and his fellow fishermen have long been self-reporting bycatch.

Karbowski can understand the point of view. Those participating in a specific fishery need to be involved in developing such a project, like the west coast crab fishermen did, she said.

"When a project is developed with industry, that's when it's going to work best," she said. "They have to care about what they're doing and want it to succeed."

Currently, many global fisheries have requirements for observers on board. In Canada, the level of observer coverage -- for example, the percentage of fishing trips with an observer present -- is determined on a fishery by fishery basis, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Communications Advisor Janine Malikian told IntraFish.

"Coverage levels are based on a number of factors, including the data required to be collected from the fishery for science and fishery management purposes, the management regime of the fishery, operational feasibility, costs and so on," she said. "DFO is currently developing a policy of fishery monitoring that will set out criteria to determine the required monitoring in a fishery."

While EMS is in theory cheaper than having an observer on board a vessel, it is more effective for fisheries that use certain gears.

"It's a lot easier to develop or implement [EMS] over a fishery that has a gear type that is more static -- something like longline or a trap that's coming up over the same part of the vessel routinely versus a trawl, where you're hauling up a large number of fish and need to identify bycatch species," Karbowski said. "It can be a lot more challenging."

In the US, most of the industry welcomes EMS, said Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers Executive Director Tyson Fick, telling IntraFish it's "damn expensive" to have observers on boats.

"In general, yes, we would embrace it, we're all about using technology," he said.

Some fishermen, such as those who harvest halibut in Alaska, have been huge proponents, Fick said, because they have a lot of small boats fishing.

"To have an extra person on board with them is much more of a hassle," he explained.

Some fishermen are worried about the costs of installing the technology, both in the US and Canada. Since the technology hasn't been "deployed in a wide range," Fick said they haven't pinpointed a number for installation and maintenance costs.

Malikian said EMS "may over time help reduce the costs of monitoring and help collect data more efficiently and with fewer errors," but Karbowski said she understands some of the concern.

If a fishery is required to only have five percent observer coverage, that might make more sense than having a camera on board, she said.

"Video and electronic monitoring isn't the be all and end all for all fisheries," she said. "It simply doesn't work for some fisheries or is just too expensive for them and that's okay, as long as they're coming up with alternatives."

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