Press Releases :

Advancing deep sea red crab research
October 25, 2010

After joining the Atlantic deep sea red crab fishery in 1995, Jon Williams and fellow harvesters began an eight-year quest to ultimately become the first Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fishery on the East coast. Scientific data was limited because the fishery was not actively targeted for harvesting prior to the 1990s. The fishermen were able to secure certification and have been innovative and proactive about improving information, but the fishery still lacks crucial fishery and abundance data. As a result, catch limits have been set conservatively.

GMRI Scientist Shelly Tallack recently launched a pilot study in collaboration with red crab fishermen to test an electronic monitoring system for recording catch and discard information during routine commercial trips. Williams is excited about the project's potential to enable sound management of the fishery.

"One of the conditions placed on the red crab industry by the MSC was to improve data collection and communication with regulators. This project meets that condition, and also has the potential to increase our efficiency."

With funding from the Northeast Consortium, Tallack is working with fishermen to customize OLFISH software for their data recording needs. Equipping vessels as electronic data collection platforms provides an opportunity for fishermen to lend their expertise to the scientific research process and improve stock assessments. This project builds upon Tallack's previous work with the fishery, which she began in 2002. Her last project addressed gear efficiency, aiming to catch fewer undersized red crab and still fish effectively.

 

Testimonials :

Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association

Our membership found the software to be very user friendly yet extremely powerful in terms of its data collection, reporting and managing capacity. With this software our members were able to fulfill the data collection requirements of both federal and state jurisdiction.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

The software is appreciated by the fishermen participating in the project and they feel it is easy to use.

Environmental Defense Fund

We have been extremely please with the competence, efficieny and professionalism of the entire OLRAC staff during this process. Their "can do" attitude combined with creative software engineers and innovative leaders has made our experience working with OLRAC very positive.

I&J

The project has turned out better than expected, and we found the OLRAC company to be a very professional orginization that took those extra steps to ensure that our job was finished to our complete satisfaction.