NOAA Fisheries is looking to help close the \u201cgap\u201d in fisheries data in the CNMI, but funding and staffing deficiencies, as well as current survey methods, may pose challenges to this, according to Insular Fisheries Monitoring Program manager Kimberly Lowe last week.<\/p>\n
Improved data would help the CNMI further monitor their resources to see if they are overfishing, if they are fishing sustainably, or even if something is happening to fisheries like habitat destruction from erosion choking up coral reefs, for example.<\/p>\n
Lowe met with acting Department of Land and Natural Resources secretary Richard Seman earlier this month. She called Seman \u201cvery supportive of this effort,\u201d and they are working on \u201csome good ideas together.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOAA Fisheries has worked with the Division of Fish and Wildlife staff on fishery data collection on activities\u2014from trolling, to hook and line fishing\u2014but one of the things they are focusing on now is what they call \u201cthe gap\u201d in data that occurs during late and early hours of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI\u2019s fisheries have changed quite a bit since the surveys began and we need to adapt to those changes.\u00a0 Funding is part of the deficiency. We could use more survey hours. Plus, the current methods may not be ideal to cover all fishing methods and ways of accessing the ocean,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, spear fishing is often hard to reach by monitoring shorelines or boat ramps, because fishermen may wade out to the edge of the reef and they are not reached to conduct an interview when they return.\u201d<\/p>\n
They may be able to develop survey methods that better reach fishermen via a telephone survey or some other form of outreach, she said. Market surveys have worked fairly well for commercial fishermen \u201cbut that is only part of the picture,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n
Lowe said that Seman actually took part in DFW\u2019s fishing surveys as a young man and rose to become DFW director, and now secretary. \u201cSo he has an in-depth knowledge of this work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs he [earlier] stated, part of the \u2018gap\u2019 is missed fishing activity that takes place during the hours when DFW is not at work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Right now, NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Center is trying to help enhance staffing at DFW to improve their ability to cover more of the times of day and locations when fishermen come in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working with DLNR\/DFW to provide staff (which means funding) and technical training to improve data analysis,\u201d noted Lowe.<\/p>\n
PIFSC staff is also working with DFW to develop methods that better cover rare or hard- to-reach fishing activity, she said.<\/p>\n
According to Seman earlier, the \u201cgap\u201d occurs between the hours of 10pm to 4am, as government operations that survey and weigh fish and interview fishermen occur from 4am to 10pm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking at ways in which we can address that gap by perhaps creating new jobs or responsibilities that focuses on those particular timeline\u2026Right now, the current staffing of the Division and Fish and Wildlife is enough for the kind of schedule that they have but to start working on the other hours may require additional staffing,\u201d he had said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NOAA Fisheries is looking to help close the \u201cgap\u201d in fisheries data in the CNMI,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,1584,2323,1980],"class_list":["post-192462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-dfw","tag-kimberly-lowe","tag-pifsc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}