Fisheries Management and Analysis Division

The precursor to the North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program (NPGOP) was established in 1973. A small group of U.S. advisory scientists were invited aboard Japanese motherships to monitor the incidental catches of Pacific halibut in the groundfish catches. This group expanded into the Foreign Fishery Observer Program when the Magnuson Fishery Conservation Act of 1976 mandated that foreign vessels operating within the Fishery Conservation Zone accept U.S. citizens as observers.

In 1978, U.S. fishers entered the fishery through joint venture operations with the foreign vessels. Legislative acts in 1988-90 mandated observer coverage of domestic fishing vessels, resulting in the creation of the NPGOP. By 1991, the Americanization of the Alaskan groundfish fisheries was complete and all foreign fishing ended.

The observer program is managed by the Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division (FMA) which is charged with monitoring groundfish fishing activities in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off Alaska and conducting research associated with sampling commercial fishery catches; estimation of catch and bycatch mortality; and analysis of fishery-dependent data. The Division is responsible for training, briefing, debriefing and oversight of observers who collect catch data onboard fishing vessels and at onshore processing plants and for quality control/quality assurance of the data provided by these observers. Division staff process data and make it available to the Sustainable Fisheries Division of the Alaska Regional Office for quota monitoring and to scientists in other AFSC divisions for stock assessment, ecosystem investigations, and an array of research investigations

Our mission is to collect and provide the catch, bycatch, and biological data necessary to support in-season monitoring and stock assessment commensurate with the highest level of data quality, data integrity, and

professionalism.

The NPGOP headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington, at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, 7600 Sand Point Way, NE. Satellite offices exist in Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Our scientific staff oversees the gathering and dissemination of fisheries data collected by biologists (observers) stationed aboard U.S. fishing vessels and at shore-based processing plants.

Confidentiality agreement required.

None

All Observer (FMA) data are maintained in an enterprise instance of an Oracle database. Data entry of field data is by batch process using SQL Loader. Editing and reporting use a combination of SQL queries, and Oracle Application Express.