It is suggested that these projects should be 

 conducted for at least a year, possibly more, in 

 order to cover the entire fishing season and 

 range of activities on any given area. At the 

 end of the project, each should be evaluated 

 with special attention to determining the com- 

 pleteness of coverage provided, the cost, the 

 timeliness and usefulness of information ob- 

 tained, and a comparison of each method with 

 traditional enforcement activities, and other 

 possible alternatives to the pilot method. 



Shipboard Observers (for background discus- 

 sion, see pages 38 to 42) 



OTA's analysis suggests that much could be 

 learned from a pilot project in which a foreign 

 fishery is nearly blanketed with shipboard ob- 

 servers who have both management and en- 

 forcement duties. 



The New England region would be most 

 suitable for such a pilot project because the 

 fishing grounds are concentrated and foreign- 

 fishing practices are well known; many of the 

 foreign vessels fish in groups which could 

 simplify the arrangement of vessels with ob- 

 servers and control vessels without observers; 

 and the stocks in that region are generally 

 depleted and information for use in restoring 

 stocks is badly needed. 



About 150 foreign vessels, on the average, 

 have traditionally fished within the 200-mile 

 zone off New England. At this writing, the 

 number of permit applications which had 

 been received suggested that this number will 

 probably go down because of the 1977 catch 

 allocations. Therefore, it appears that a total of 

 about 100 shipboard observers would be 

 suitable for the pilot project. These observers 

 should be selected on the basis of experience 

 in fishing practice and knowledge of fishery 



matters. If they are given enforcement duties, 

 they should be Coast Guard personnel, in- 

 stead of NMFS personnel. However, they 

 should receive some training from NMFS in 

 observing, collecting, and reporting informa- 

 tion of value. Some familiarity with the nation 

 on whose vessel the observer serves would 

 also be helpful. 



Based on NMFS estimates for their existing 

 limited-observer program the cost of a 100- 

 man pilot program would be roughly $2 

 million plus funds for an accurate evaluation 

 of the pilot. 



Under the law, this cost is passed on to the 

 foreign vessels. However, other fees and 

 charges are also levied, under the law, to reim- 

 burse the United States for management and 

 enforcement activities in the 200-mile zone. 

 Since the observer program would presuma- 

 bly make some other expenditures covered by 

 these levies unnecessary, the gross-tonnage 

 fee or tax on ex-vessel value of the catch could 

 be reduced accordingly. 



Transfer of Military Data (for background 

 discussion, see pages 43 to 44) 



OTA proposes a pilot program utilizing one 

 of the existing military systems for the collec- 

 tion and transfer of available surveillance data 

 for one specific region. Some precedent for 

 such a project already exists at the Naval 

 Ocean Surveillance Information Center where 

 the Coast Guard has recently detailed one 

 officer to work on data which are of interest to 

 the Coast Guard and have not, in the past, 

 been processed by Navy personnel. 



OTA has not investigated the feasibility of 

 using a specific system in any region, but it 

 appears that the Navy's west coast network 

 could be a likely pilot region. Any pilot proj- 

 ect should begin with an indepth investigation 

 of the Navy's existing system and its ability to 



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