Tough Environments: Archipelago Marine Research Ltd. Organization
Archipelago Marine Research Ltd is a world leader in the field of fisheries monitoring and marine environmental assessment. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, Archipelago has been providing marine biological services since 1978. The firm is responsible for monitoring analysis of several commercial fisheries, providing over 10,000 days of at-sea observing per annum. Successfully managed commercial fisheries must ensure that harvesting practices fit within long-term resource conservation targets and sustainability goals. In meeting these objectives, fisheries data systems must become more comprehensive and higher in quality. Traditional data collection usually involves at-sea observers. However, it is impractical for certain fisheries due to the labour cost of these observers as well as the accommodation of the extra person on the vessel. Archipelago began looking for a technology based at-sea monitoring approach as a means to address these issues. Solution Archipelago utilized Silent Witness components in the development of a custom on-board video monitoring system. The monitoring system is housed in a locked, tamperproof enclosure and is connected to a number of sensors, such as the winch, hydraulic pressure transducer, and in the case of the crab fishery, the radio frequency identification scanner. At the heart of the system is the DVMS Duplex that records fishing imagery along with information from the GPS receiver and other sensors. As well, MagnaView V28S cameras were mounted on the mast to observe hauling of the catch and various other fishing operations.  Overall, compared to using traditional at-sea observers, the electronic monitoring system is 20% of the cost with 100% monitoring across the crab fishery, while within the long line fishery, video-based catch estimates were within 2% of observer based catch estimates. Electronic monitoring has successfully addressed a variety of fishery information needs including fishing time and location, gear deployment and retrieval methods, catch and by-catch handling, and catch identification, enumeration and disposition. Within the crab fishery, the system was found to have paid for itself in the first year and provided fishermen a sense of fairness that all within the industry were abiding to the rules.
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