1999 

 OUR LIVING OCEANS 



Sampling table and mixed 

 catch on chartered com- 

 mercial trawler, triennial 

 west coast groundfish as- 

 sessment survey. 



The Northeast Region has the longest history oi surveys, which have heen conducted 

 since the 1960's for groundfish, and more recently also for pelagic and invertebrate re- 

 sources. All regions have fishery-independent surveys hir some ol" their more important 

 resources, and ef-forts are underway to improve NMFS' ability to obtain abundance indices 

 through a data acquisition plan involving the deplovment ot new replacement fisheries 

 research vessels and increases in the use ot charter vessels. The new vessels are urgently 

 needed because existing NOAA fisheries research vessels average 34 years old, are techno- 

 logically obsolete, and are approaching the end ot their usekil service life. lo ensure the 

 continuit)- and scientific integrity of NMFS' survey time-series, each replacement vessel 

 must be calibrated with its older counterpart, while it is still operational. 



Many of the issues discussed in the previous sections end up, in one way or another, 

 affecting the allocation of fishery resources. Allocation can be between countries, between 

 states, between several commercial sectors, commercial-recreational, inshore-offshore, tribal- 

 nontribal, and ciMnbinations of these. Allocation decisions require precise and accurate 

 knowledge of user-specific harvest levels in addition to an understanding of the spatial 

 segregation of the resource. Recreational fisheries have increased consiclerably in impor- 

 tance and are now the main source of fishing mortalit}' tor many stocks, particularly in 

 coastal waters (Unit 21). But, because of their dispersed nature, recreational fishing im- 

 pacts are difficult to quantify. The main source of data for recreational fisheries is the NMFS 

 marine recreational fisheries statistics surveys (MRFSS'') which now constitutes a 20-year 

 continuous time series. In recent years, there have been several efforts to increase levels of 

 samplmt' (e.ti. for kin" mackerel in the Southeast Region) and to conduct region-wide 

 surveys to collect data on the demographics and economics of recreational fisheries (in the 

 Northeast Region in 1994 and 1998, the Southeast Region in 1997, and the Pacific Coast 

 Region in 1998). Cooperative programs to improve the collection of data on charter boat 

 operations have also recently been initiated in Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, 

 anci the Culf of Mexico. Data on recreational fisheries are now available to the public on 

 the World Wide Web.^ 



''MRF-.SS (iVKirini- Recrcuion.il F-ishL-rics .St.itisric.s Survey). NMFS tiftkc ol Science ,iiid Technologv, I-'islicr- 

 ies St.uistics .uid ^Aonomil.^ Division, Silver Spring, MD 20910. 

 littp://www.st. nmfs.gov/stl /rec re.it ion.il/d,itab.i.se/i ndex.html 



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