INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR 21 ST CENTURY FISHERIES: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY TO END OVERFISHING AND BUILD AMERICA S FISHERIES

Transcription

1 INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR 21 ST CENTURY FISHERIES: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY TO END OVERFISHING AND BUILD AMERICA S FISHERIES REPORT OF THE MARINE FISH CONSERVATION NETWORK CONTACT: Ken Stump, Policy Director Marine Fish conservation Network x203 (work) (mobile) kstump@conservefish.org

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY TO END OVERFISHING AND REBUILD AMERICA S FISHERIES. 2. SCIENTIFIC AND MANAGEMENT UNCERTAINTY IN THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS: HOW IMPROVED INFORMATION REDUCES RISKS AND IMPROVES FISHING OPPORTUNITIES. 3. KEY FISHERIES RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS WITH GREATEST IMPACT ON UNCERTAINTY IN THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS. 4. UPGRADING THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS: A NEEDS ASSESSMENT STOCK ASSESSMENTS FISHERY-INDEPENDENT SURVEYS 4.3 AT-SEA CATCH MONITORING AND DATA COLLECTION RECREATIONAL FISHERIES CATCH MONITORING AND DATA COLLECTION 5. LONG-TERM NEEDS AND NEAR-TERM PRIORITIES: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY STOCK ASSESSMENTS 5.2 FISHERY-INDEPENDENT SURVEYS 5.3 COMMERCIAL FISHERIES CATCH MONITORING DATA: AT-SEA OBSERVERS 5.4 IMPROVING MARINE RECREATIONAL FISHERIES MONITORING AND DATA 6. SUMMARY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS December 23,

3 1. INTRODUCTION: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY TO END OVERFISHING AND REBUILD AMERICA S FISHERIES As a consequence of chronic overfishing, a number of depleted U.S. fisheries are under-performing biologically and economically, yielding only a fraction of their potential if overfishing were ended and those stocks were rebuilt to healthy levels. 1 In 2003, NMFS estimated that recent average yield in U.S. fisheries was only about 60% of the long-term potential if all stocks were rebuilt, a loss valued at $1.4 billion annually in foregone dockside fishing revenues not accounting for the lost economic value that could have been added at the wholesale and retail sectors, worth billions more to the U.S. economy. 2 All told, Americans have forgone as much as $3 billion annually in potential revenue, jobs and other economic activity because stocks are not producing what they could if overfishing ended and stocks rebounded. 3 Numerous studies have found that if depleted stocks were restored to healthy levels capable of producing higher yields, the economic value of those fisheries would be far higher. One recent study In 2010, U.S. commercial fishermen earned over $4.4 billion for their catch, generated an estimated $133 billion in sales impacts, contributed $55 billion to GNP, and supported approximately 1.2 million full- and part-time jobs in the seafood sectors and across the broader economy. In addition, 11 million recreational saltwater anglers across the U.S. spent some $4.3 billion on fishing trips and $15 billion on durable fishing-related equipment expenditures estimated to contribute $50 billion in sales to the U.S. economy, generate $23 billion in value-added impacts, and support 327,000 jobs. Fisheries Economics of the United States 2010 (NOAA/NMFS 2012) estimated that commercial fishermen in New England, the South Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico suffered catch losses of 70-80% compared to landings that could have occurred if overfished stocks were healthy, worth $ million in lost catches and fishing revenues in 2009 a figure that does not account for the foregone seafood revenues and other sales impacts at the wholesale and retail level. New England commercial fishermen alone lost at least $149 million and realized just 21% of potential revenues in To put this in perspective, chronic overfishing in these three regions costs U.S. commercial fishermen at least four times more each year in lost revenues compared to the projected annual cost to commercial fishermen in Louisiana arising from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 5 Fortunately, Congressional amendments to the nation s fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), in 1996 and 2006 introduced basic reforms that have put the United States at the forefront of efforts to end overfishing. The Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act of 2006 built on the overfishing reforms of the Sustainable Fisheries Act amendments to the MSA a decade earlier and strengthened them by adopting key recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (2004) that require Councils to specify annual catch limits (ACLs) at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery with accountability measures (AMs) to ensure compliance 6 and require each Council s science advisors, the so-called Scientific and Statistical Committees (SSCs), to make recommendations for acceptable biological catch (ABC) 7 that serve as the upper limit on ACLs. 8 The intent of the new ACL and AM requirement is to provide a transparent accounting mechanism for measuring compliance with the MSA s requirements to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. 9 Congress also adopted key recommendations of the National Research Council (NRC 2006) designed to improve the quality and accuracy of information used to manage recreational saltwater fisheries, 10 actions that will be crucial to successful management of ACLs in those fisheries. December 23,

4 Council Region: INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR 21 ST CENTURY FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: All of these management objectives require timely, reliable Our research indicates that as much as $200 million above current funding of $256 million could be required over the next decade for NOAA s fish scientific data and monitoring of fisheries catches in order to make stock assessment program to keep pace with the demands for timely informed decisions, and new information and robust scientific advice in the ACL-setting process. Under requirements in the 2006 any funding scenario, long-term funding must be sufficient to maintain the reauthorization for annual catch adequacy and currency of assessments over time, otherwise the benefit of limits (ACLs) and accountability the initial investment in improved information and reduced uncertainty will measures (AMs) aimed at be lost. preventing overfishing will increase demands for information at all levels of fisheries management. At present, however, federal funding for basic data collection, catch monitoring and stock assessment science programs fails to keep pace with the demands in many fisheries. The resulting uncertainty has serious consequences for efforts to prevent overfishing, rebuild depleted fish stocks and sustain robust fisheries over time. KEY FINDINGS Table 1 below summarizes key sources of uncertainty and critical information needs for ACL-setting in key regional fisheries reviewed by this project. Although it is difficult to compare one region's needs to another s because there is no objective measure that applies equally across all regions and fisheries, our research has identified substantial unmet needs for basic information in all regions involving fishery catch monitoring, fishery-independent resource monitoring, and fish stock assessment capacity. Lack of adequate funding for these programs is limiting the capability to provide the data streams needed for the fish stock assessment and catch-setting process, resulting in high levels of scientific and management uncertainty in many fisheries. Table 1. Regional fisheries uncertainty/information needs to support the catch specification process Science Southwest/ Pacific Center: Northeast Southeast Alaska Northwest Islands Program Area: Fisherydependent data (commercial) 1 Fishery dependent data (recreational) 1 Fisheryindependent data 2 Stock assessment 3 New England Increase at-sea monitoring; expand sampling Expand sampling; timelier reporting Improve survey design Improve data inputs, assessment capability, frequency for all stocks Mid- Atlantic Increase at-sea monitoring; expand sampling Expand sampling; timelier reporting Improve survey design Improve data inputs, assessment capability, frequency for all stocks South Atlantic Increase at-sea monitoring; expand sampling Expand Sampling; timelier reporting Expand MARMAP coverage, sampling Improve data inputs; increase assessment frequency, output Gulf of Mexico Increase at-sea monitoring; expand sampling Expand sampling; timelier reporting Expand SEAMAP coverage, sampling Improve data inputs; increase assessment frequency, output US Caribbean Standardize reporting methods; expand sampling Expand sampling; timelier reporting Survey capability lacking Assessment capability lacking Pacific Adequate for major commercial stocks Expand sampling; timelier reporting Improve rockfish survey capability; annual acoustic survey for hake Improve assessment capability for unassessed and datapoor stocks North Pacific Adequate for major commercial stocks Improved reporting Gulf of Alaska Maintain survey frequency Improve assessment capability for unassessed and datapoor stocks Western Pacific Increase at-sea monitoring; expand sampling of catch data, length and age data Expand sampling of catch data, length and age data; timelier reporting Consistent survey of multispecies fishery stocks lacking Improve CPUE standardization, improve data inputs, assessment frequency, output December 23,

5 High Need Significant Need Moderate Need Adequate 1 Elements include: catch, landings data (including discards); length, weight and age data; fishing effort (CPUE), time/area information 2 Elements include: survey capacity, coverage area, frequency 3 Elements include: assessment capacity, frequency, output While no amount of information can completely eliminate uncertainty in fisheries management and the catch-setting process, targeted federal funding for key data collection, catch monitoring and stock assessment programs that are part of the NOAA s national fish stock assessment program will have the greatest impact on reducing uncertainty in the ACL-setting process and identifying optimal harvest strategies that achieve the MSA s objectives for sustainable use of fisheries resources. 11 NMFS estimates that the total expenditure on these core programs is approximately $256 million in This total includes funding for a number of core NMFS Fisheries Research and Management budget lines, including all part of: Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (EASA) Survey and Monitoring Projects Fishery Statistics Observers and Training Fisheries Research and Management Programs Reducing Bycatch Fishery Information Networks Cooperative Research Because the information provided by these programs makes such a large contribution to reducing uncertainty in fishery management decision-making and is so vital to the MSA s objectives for sustainable fisheries, a sustained commitment of federal funding for these core activities is essential. Cost recovery mechanisms for limited access privilege (LAP) programs, popularly known as catch shares, provide one mechanism for the fishing industry to bear some of this cost and reduce the federal expenditure. Innovative new sources of non-federal funding have also been proposed, such as a national seafood trust fund with revenues generated from a value-added tax on all seafood sales. Public investments in the basic information infrastructure that underpins efforts to manage fisheries sustainably are essential not only for informed decision-making and stewardship of the nation s fisheries resources, but also for realizing the full economic potential of our nation s fisheries. Regardless of the funding source, there is clearly a need to increase investments in the information infrastructure that supports and sustains U.S. fisheries. In the four strategic areas within the NOAA Fisheries budget identified in this report as having the biggest impact on reducing scientific and management uncertainty in the ACLsetting process, our analysis indicates that as much as $200 million above current funding could be required over the next decade to keep pace with the demand for timely, reliable information: Fishery stock assessments. NOAA has stated a goal of providing high-quality, predictive stock assessments for the 230 major stocks in the Fish Stock Sustainability Index (FSSI), which account for about 95% of the value of U.S. fisheries, and to provide at least baseline monitoring for the other 300-odd minor stocks in federal fishery management plans (FMPs). 13 Recent congressional appropriations of $51-53 million could achieve adequate assessments for as many December 23,

6 as 150 FSSI stocks beyond Long-term costs of achieving high-quality, predictive stock assessments for all 230 major stocks in the Fish Stock Sustainability Index (FSSI) could be $80 million above current expenditures, according to NMFS. Fishery-independent surveys. Resource monitoring conducted by ocean-going research vessels is a cornerstone of stock assessment science, but existing survey capacity is being eroded by rising costs and limited budgets. In 2009, the total expenditure on fishery resource surveys by NOAA s fleet of 10 fishery survey vessels (FSVs) and chartered fishing vessels was approximately $23 million. As much as $10 million would be needed to operate NOAA s FSVs at full capacity compared to the 2011 utilization rate, and additional funding of as much as $15-19 million could be needed to maintain existing chartered survey capabilities and expand survey capacity in key regions. At-sea catch monitoring. Catch monitoring is essential to provide managers and scientists with reliable estimates of fishing mortality as well as basic information on composition of the catch and biological data used in stocks assessments. Recent congressional appropriations of $32-41 million for NMFS observer programs are only 26-34% of the projected need by 2009 ($122 million), as described in a 2003 NMFS needs assessment. As much as $85 million above recent funding could be required to bring all currently observed fisheries up to a level of at least 20% coverage of fishing trips 14 while achieving minimal baseline or pilot-level observer coverage in fisheries that currently have no coverage or negligible (<1%) coverage (MFCN 2010). 15 These numbers are consistent with the conclusions of a recent (2011) NMFS national bycatch report, which indicates the need to nearly double observer sea days on fishing trips to improve fishery bycatch estimation. 16 Recreational fisheries monitoring. There is a high need for increased investments in expanded data collection and timelier reporting of recreational catch data to improve the management and sustainability of recreational saltwater fisheries, especially when managing these fisheries to avoid exceeding ACLs. 17 Recent congressional appropriations for a new and improved recreational data collection system have totaled $9 million through Long-term funding required to achieve the program to full potential is uncertain, pending finalization of specific operational goals, but at least $20 million is considered an initial funding target more than double the amount in While these cost projections and investments are significant, they are small by comparison to the economic activity generated by these investments. For instance, the total expenditure on stock assessments and related survey and fishery monitoring capability in 2011 ($256 million), 18 is only 6 percent of the value of fish sold at the docks by commercial fishermen in 2009 ($3.9 billion), and only a tiny fraction of one percent of the total estimated revenues, income and sales Because the information provided by these programs makes such a large contribution to reducing uncertainty in fishery management decisionmaking and is so vital to the MSA s objectives for sustainable fisheries, a sustained commitment of federal funding for the core activities that comprise the fish stock assessment program is essential. impacts of commercial fishing in 2009 ($152billion). 19 This annual management investment pays a handsome dividend in the form of more stable and productive fisheries. Rebuilding of all overfished stocks could add as much as $2.2 billion in dockside revenues (an increase of 50% over recent dockside value) and support half a million new jobs in the seafood industry, 20 not accounting for the downstream seafood sales impacts. December 23,

7 Public investments in the basic information infrastructure that underpins efforts to manage fisheries sustainably are essential not only for informed decision-making and stewardship of the nation s fisheries resources, but also for realizing the full economic Funding for these programs is analogous to investments in roads, bridges, electrical grids and other basic infrastructure that support the flow commerce and foster economic growth. potential of our nation s fisheries. Funding for these programs is analogous to investments in roads, bridges, electrical grids and other basic infrastructure that support the flow of commerce and foster economic growth. In short, these are investments in the basic information infrastructure of fisheries management, and they repay themselves many times over in the revenues, income and jobs generated by commercial and recreational fishing. 21,22 December 23,

8 2. SCIENTIFIC AND MANAGEMENT UNCERTAINTY IN THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS: HOW IMPROVED INFORMATION REDUCES RISKS AND IMPROVES FISHING OPPORTUNITIES Achieving sustainable use of fisheries resources for U.S. fishermen has always been the goal of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the federal law that governs fishing activities in ocean waters out to 200 nautical miles from shore. 23 Originally passed in 1976, 24 the MSA was a direct response to concerns about overfishing by foreign fishing vessels off U.S. coasts and prevention of overfishing has been the highest priority from the beginning, as reflected in National Standard 1 of the Act. 25 But neither the law nor regulatory guidelines on overfishing explicitly compelled the eight regional fishery management councils (Councils) to halt the practice in the early years of the MSA. The lack of a clear requirement for firm catch limits and accountability measures, failure to heed scientific advice on limits, and risky decision-making resulted in chronic overfishing that reached crisis proportions in many of America s fisheries by the 1990s. The Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act of 2006 built on the overfishing reforms of the Sustainable Fisheries Act amendments to the MSA a decade earlier and strengthened them by adopting key recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (2004) that require Councils to specify ACLs at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery with accountability measures to ensure compliance 26 and require each Council s science advisors, the so-called Scientific and Statistical Committees (SSCs), to make recommendations for acceptable biological catch (ABC) 27 that serve as the upper limit on ACLs. 28 The intent of the new ACL requirement is to provide a transparent accounting mechanism for measuring compliance with the MSA s requirements to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. 29 Congress also adopted key recommendations of the National Research Council (NRC 2006) designed to improve the quality and accuracy of information used to manage recreational saltwater fisheries, 30 actions that will be crucial to successful management of ACLs in those fisheries. With new requirements come new responsibilities for SSCs and Council fishery managers, as well as increased demands for information to set, monitor and enforce ACLs. Uncertainty about the true abundance and dynamics of wild fish populations poses a fundamental challenge for the ACL-setting process because even at the most basic level of information needed for catch-setting estimating abundance the population size of any fish stock is never observed directly and the estimates cannot be verified by counting the fish 31 Fisheries science necessarily works with incomplete data and provides probabilistic advice. 32,33 Hence decisions about sustainable levels of Sources of Uncertainty in the Science and Management of Annual Catch Limits (ACLs) Uncertainty looms large in every aspect of fisheries management, particularly in the stock assessment and catch-setting process. Key uncertainties in the catch-setting process include the scientific uncertainty associated with estimates of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and the overfishing level (OFL). In addition, the management uncertainty associated with unreliable or incomplete catch data can make compliance with any limit extremely difficult to monitor and enforce. Major sources of uncertainty include: Sampling/observation error in data collection Assessment input parameter uncertainty Assessment projection uncertainty Stock vulnerability due to life history Management implementation uncertainty Differences among sectors within in a fishery Extrinsic ecological and environmental factors Because all fisheries information is uncertain and there is always some risk of overfishing, an effective system of ACLs and AMs will necessitate explicit consideration of uncertainty when specifying catch limits. The revised National Standard 1 regulatory guidelines for specifying ACLs and AMs (NMFS 2009) require fishery managers to take an approach that considers uncertainty in scientific information and management control of the fishery in the catch-setting process. December 23,

9 fishing must be made in an environment in which uncertainty is a fact of life. Better information can reduce key sources of uncertainty significantly, but no amount of information can eliminate uncertainty or the need for precautionary approach to setting catch limits. Because improved information can reduce uncertainty in fisheries data but never eliminate it entirely, an effective system of ACLs and AMs must account for uncertainty explicitly when specifying catch limits. Technical guidance on the implementation of National Standard 1 calls on scientists and managers to exercise greater caution and be more conservative in setting catch limits when information is limited and uncertainty is high. 34 The regulatory guidelines for National Standard 1 (NS 1 Guidelines) now require fishery managers to take an approach that considers uncertainty in scientific information and management control of the fishery in the ACL-setting process. 35 The objective is to lower the probability that the Figure 1 Conceptual framework of uncertainty overfishing limit will be exceeded, while not buffers designed to account for scientific overly restricting fishing opportunities. 36 This and management uncertainty in the ABCand ACL-setting process requirement, arising from the MSA s strong mandate to prevent overfishing, creates a powerful incentive to obtain timely, reliable scientific information for catch-setting decisions. The MSA s requirements to use the best scientific information available 37 and for the SSCs to make fishing level recommendations on fishery limits which then serve as the upper bound on ACLs, combined with the requirement to consider uncertainty in their recommendations (e.g., by setting their recommended limit safely below the overfishing limit, or OFL), all underscore the importance of having good scientific information. Inputs of information reduce uncertainty at every step of the catch-setting process, thereby reducing the size of safety buffers to account for it (Fig. 1 and schematic in Fig. 2 below). Figure 2. A schematic representation of the effects of added information on the setting of catch limits from the NMFS Stock Assessment Improvement Plan (2001), illustrating the relationship between scientific uncertainty and uncertainty buffers in the ABC-setting process. As information increases and uncertainty decreases, catch limits can be set progressively closer to the true ABC without increasing the risk of overfishing. December 23,

10 All of this entails adequate funding of the interrelated management activities involving basic data collection, catch monitoring, and stock assessment science which provide the basis for setting ABCs and ACLs that have a high likelihood of preventing overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks while achieving optimal use of fisheries resources over time, as required by the MSA. A principle objective of this report is to evaluate opportunities to leverage federal funding in core fisheries research and management programs within the NOAA Fisheries budget which reduce scientific and management uncertainty in the ACL-setting process. By reducing both sources of uncertainty, fishery managers are better able to set ACLs that successfully prevent overfishing while, in many cases, increasing fishing opportunities safely within the scientists recommended limits (Fig. 3). 38 Figure 3. The ABC- and ACL-setting process and information inputs along the way that can reduce uncertainty buffers. An ABC control rule should be designed to address datarich and data-poor stocks, and include procedures for adjusting the uncertainty buffer based on the level of available information for each stock. If effective inseason management of ACLs is lacking, the revised NS1 guidelines recommend the use of an annual catch target (ACT) as part of the AMs for a fishery to reduce the likelihood of exceeding ACL. The greater the management uncertainty, the larger the buffer between ACT and ACL should be to account for the increased risk of exceeding ACL. December 23,

11 3. KEY FISHERIES RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS WITH GREATEST IMPACT ON UNCERTAINTY IN THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS While no amount of information can eliminate uncertainty in fisheries management or the need to take a precautionary approach to catch-setting, this study demonstrates the potential of achieving substantial reductions in uncertainty at each step in the process by providing adequate funding for key data collection, catch monitoring and stock assessment programs. We have identified four strategic areas within the NMFS Fisheries Research and Management Programs and NOAA Program Support budgets where funding has the biggest impact on reducing scientific and management uncertainty in the ACL-setting process: fishery stock assessments; fishery-independent surveys; at-sea catch monitoring; and recreational fisheries monitoring. As shown in Fig. 4 below, a stock assessment is the end-product of a process that starts with the collection of data from both fishery-dependent and fishery-independent sources in order to estimate total catch (how many fish are taken from the water), track the abundance of the target stock (how many fish there are to take), and obtain critical life history information on vital parameters such as growth by life stage, age of maturity, fecundity, and natural mortality.taken together, they provide the basis for scientists to assess the status of a stock and make predictions about the impacts on the stock at a given level or rate of fishing. This advice enables fishery managers to make better decisions about how many fish can safely be taken from the population without compromising the health of the stock. Fig. 4. Schematic of main data inputs and outputs of the stock assessment process that support the setting of ACLs 39 In 2011, NMFS estimates the total expenditure for these activities to be approximately $256 million. 40 This total represents a number of core Fisheries Research and Management budget lines, including all or parts of the programs shown in Figure 5 below. It covers much more than just the stock assessment activity and includes all aspects of resource survey and fishery monitoring as well as support for ecosystem research to improve and broaden stock assessments. However, it does not include infrastructure costs (e.g., buildings) or the costs associated with days at sea on NOAA Fishery Survey Vessels provided by NOAA s Program Support division. December 23,

12 Figure 5. Funding trends for core NMFS budget lines contributing in whole or part to NOAA s fish stock assessment program, FY and President s budget FY2012. The lack of specific information on the allocation of funds makes it difficult to provide a more detailed breakdown of expenditures for many of these budget lines. However, a snapshot of budget allocations is available for the EASA budget in 2010, indicating that EASA funding is used across a portfolio of activities such as resource surveys and fishery catch monitoring, including recreational fisheries monitoring, that contribute to the development and updating of stock assessments (Fig. 6). 41 snapshot of EASA spending illustrates the interconnectedness of stock assessment, resource monitoring, and fishery monitoring activities as aspects of the fish stock assessment program. Fishery-independent surveys and catch data collected from commercial and recreational fisheries all underpin the stock assessment process and are inextricably linked through the formulation of scientific advice for ACL-setting. In effect, they comprise a single activity, the purpose of which is to provide the scientific information needed to meet the conservation and management requirements of the MSA. Figure 6 The distribution of EASA expenditures by the Science Centers in FY2010 The December 23,

13 4. UPGRADING THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE CATCH-SETTING PROCESS: A NEEDS Fig. 7 ASSESSMENT Recent funding trends for core NMFS budget lines supporting basic data collection, catch monitoring and assessment science in support of the ACL-setting process. and build assessment capabilities in regions with highest need. In recent years, the close linkage of key NMFS fisheries research and management programs to the MSA s mandate for ending overfishing and firm deadlines for implementing ACLs has helped focus Congress and the Administration s attention on the need to increase funding for expanded data collection, catch monitoring and stock assessment science capabilities that support implementation of ACLs (Fig. 7). Strong bipartisan support for increases in federal funding has enabled NMFS to maintain vital survey work, increase monitoring in high-priority fisheries, hire new assessment scientists f0r all regions, While some progress has been made in improving and expanding the capabilities of these strategic program areas in recent years, our research has revealed substantial unmet needs for all of these sources of information. Additional investments will be needed over the coming decade to keep pace with the demands for timely information and robust scientific advice in the ACL-setting process. 4.1 STOCK ASSESSMENTS Providing scientific advice on sustainable harvest strategies is the work of stock assessment science, enabling NMFS to estimate the status of a stock and forecast sustainable levels of future catch for the ACL-setting process. It is NOAA s stated goal to provide high-quality, predictive stock assessments that are updated no less than once every five years for the 230 major stocks in the Fish Stock Sustainability Index (FSSI), which account for about 95% of the value of U.S. fisheries, and to provide at least baseline monitoring for the other 300-odd minor stocks in federal fishery management plans (FMPs). 42 Increasingly, however, insufficient funding has forced NMFS to prioritize maintenance of core survey and data collection activities ahead of expanding or updating stock assessments. As a consequence, progress in expanding annual stock assessments slowed and leveled off in recent years, while the average age of existing assessments has increased due to less frequent updating. In 2011, only 58% (133/230) of the FSSI stocks met the criteria for assessment adequacy. The decrease in uncertainty from new assessments has tended to be offset by the increased uncertainty associated with less frequently updated assessments or assessments that lose their adequacy rating because they fail to be updated within the five-year qualifying period. In the five years from , a large number of FSSI stocks were not assessed at all (41%) or assessed only once in five years (31%), accounting for nearly three-quarters of the 230 FSSI stocks that have been assessed (Fig. 8). 43 In terms of uncertainty in the ACL-setting process, less frequently updated assessments with stale information December 23,

14 require scientists and managers to hedge bets by setting more precautionary catch limits. Key reasons why efforts to expand and regularly update assessments have slowed in recent years include: Lack of stock assessment personnel in the face of increasing demands. In 2001, NMFS employed 122 stock assessment scientists engaged in core stock assessment activities. That same year, a national stock assessment Task Force identified the need for as many as 50 additional assessment FTEs to meet the minimum assessment requirements for managed stocks and as many as 100 to achieve state-ofthe-art assessments for all major stocks. 44 More recently Figure 8. Number of times FSSI stocks were assessed during the five-year period , by region. NMFS report estimated that that the six regional Science Centers need to hire a minimum of 135 new stock assessment scientists over 10 years to meet new demands, an increase of 50% over In 2011, NMFS had 118 assessment scientists and vacancies for 14 additional positions well short of the minimum numbers in previous needs assessments. Limited resource survey and fishery monitoring capability. A major part of the scientific process that makes stock assessment possible is the collection and analysis of data from fisheries and resource monitoring programs. The lack of reliable catch data (quantity, species composition, size and age) and limited resource survey data seriously constrains the production of high-quality stock assessments in some regions, particularly in the Southeast and Western Pacific. Recently, NMFS has identified the need to nearly double observer sea days on fishing trips just to improve fishery bycatch estimation and the need for an additional 55 FTEs to implement improvements to bycatch estimation methods. 46 Most regions are in need of expanded resource survey capacity to monitor fish populations, another critical source of uncertainty in stock assessments and catch-setting process. Expenditures of assessment money to cover shortfalls in funding in related data collection program areas. Funding increases to expand annual stock assessments have been used to cover basic survey and monitoring costs that have not received adequate funding elsewhere in the budget. In FY2008 and FY2009, cuts in funding to several components of the Survey and Monitoring budget line forced NMFS to use increases in funding from the EASA budget to cover the shortfall in order to maintain critical data streams for use in assessments. In recent years, NMFS has also used EASA funding to cover shortfalls in funding at the NOAA Office for Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) for deployment of NOAA s fleet of fishery surveys vessels (FSVs). Institutional obstacles that impede timely scientific assessment and review. The established regional stock assessment and peer review processes (e.g., SAW/SARC, SEDAR, STAR, WPSAR and Plan Teams) are intended to provide the SSCs and Councils with the best scientific information available for catch-setting purposes. In some regions, however, these scientific December 23,

15 panels are not currently structured to provide timely assessment advice for all stocks requiring ACLs in the Council catch specification process. The Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and Caribbean Councils have 50 FSSI stocks within their respective FMPs, for example, but the Southeast Data and Assessment Review (SEDAR) stock assessment capacity is only 3-6 stocks per year as now structured. Faced with a limited stock assessment budget and funding shortfalls in related NMFS survey and monitoring programs as well as crucial NOAA Program Support services for NOAA survey ship time, NMFS is forced to make difficult trade-offs between updating existing assessments to maintain their adequacy, adding new assessments for previously unassessed stocks, hiring new assessment scientists in the regional Science Centers, and maintaining critical fishery-independent resource surveys and fishery catch monitoring. This explains why the number of FSSI fishery stocks with adequate assessments has levelled off and actually declined slightly in With recent increases in EASA funding for stock assessments in , however, NMFS anticipates increasing the number of FSSI stocks with adequate assessments to 139 in 2012, and as many as 150 beyond 2012 (Fig. 9 ). Fig. 9 Projected number of FSSI stocks assessed (out of 230) at funding level for EASA (million $) Because the information provided by stock assessments makes such a large contribution to reducing uncertainty in the ACL-setting process and is so vital to the MSA s objectives for ending overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks, a sustained commitment to increased funding for stock assessments is essential in FY2012 and beyond. 4.2 FISHERY-INDEPENDENT SURVEYS Fishery-independent surveys conducted by ocean-going research vessels are a cornerstone of stock assessment science. These resource monitoring programs are designed to provide unbiased estimates of population size for a variety of species over a geographic range that is independent of the fisheries being managed. Over time they provide the most reliable index of stock abundance trends and other critical data for stock assessments and the catch-setting process. Assessments utilizing survey data in addition to fishery-dependent data generally yield more robust results with lower uncertainty, giving scientists more confidence to reduce uncertainty buffers when making catch limit recommendations for the ACL-setting process. More than 80% of FSSI stock assessments (108/133) rely on data from December 23,

16 fishery-independent surveys, and assessments using survey data have a higher proportion rated adequate than assessments without survey data. 47 Fishery resource monitoring is conducted by a combination of NOAA Fishery Survey Vessels (FSVs) and chartered fishing vessels. The majority of funding comes from the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) base budget for survey ship time on NOAA s FSVs and from the NMFS Expanding Annual Stock Assessment (EASA) and Survey and Monitoring budget lines, which fund charter surveys out NOAA s six regional fishery science centers. In addition, surveys in the Southeast Region are funded separately through the Southeast Monitoring Assessment and Prediction (SEAMAP) and the Marine Resources Monitoring Assessment and Prediction (MARMAP) budget lines, providing vital abundance data for reef-associated species in the reef fish complexes of the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, including red snapper. In 2009, the cost of fisheries resource surveys totaled $22.7 million for 78 separate fishery-related surveys. 48 NOAA FSVs accounted for 45% of the costs and OMAO accounted for 43% of the total survey funding ($9.7 million), while charter vessels accounted for 55% of the costs and EASA accounted for one-third of the total charter funding ($4.2 million). Slightly more than half of those surveys were conducted by NOAA FSVs (41), but charter vessels account for more sea-days than FSVs (62% in 2009). The number of survey sea-days varies widely by region (Fig. 10). There are clear indications that existing fishery-independent survey capacity is being eroded by rising operating costs (much of it attributable to fuel costs) and limited budgets, Fig. 10 Number of survey days at sea for charter vessels and FSVs by regional science center in 2009 and a number of regional fisheries require new or significantly expanded surveys to meet their baseline resource monitoring and assessment needs: Key fisheries in five of the eight fishery management regions we examined are in need of new or expanded fishery-independent survey capacity to meet their baseline resource monitoring and assessment needs. 49 Regions with robust survey capacity (such as Alaska) are increasingly unable to cover the rising costs of regularly scheduled surveys with existing program funds; in recent years, the Alaska Fishery Science Center has had to rely on emergency funds from NMFS Headquarters in order to maintain updated assessments for the catch-setting process. Rising operating costs and budget constraints have sharply reduced the base-funded days at sea for NOAA s fleet of fishery survey vessels (FSVs), which contribute to half of all FSSI stock assessments. The number of base-funded days at sea for FSVs under NOAA s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) declined 40% December 23, Fig. 11 NOAA fishery survey vessel (FSV) days at sea (DAS) total,

17 between 2006 and 2011 (from 2,012 sea-days to only 1,209) (Fig. 11), forcing NMFS to spend its own program funds to buy back days at sea not covered by OMAO in order to maintain its regularly scheduled surveys. 50 As these examples illustrate, funding for existing fishery-independent resource surveys is not keeping pace with rising costs and NMFS is struggling to maintain current survey capacity. It is clear that achieving the information needs required for expanded stock assessment work requires a higher level of investment in resource surveys both to maintain adequate funding for existing surveys and to build capacity for new or expanded surveys in regions of highest need, such as the South Atlantic. The availability of survey information for stock assessments has a major impact on uncertainty in the ACLsetting process and funding for this activity should be a high priority in FY2012 and beyond. 4.3 COMMERCIAL FISHERIES CATCH MONITORING AND DATA COLLECTION Catch monitoring is essential for all facets of fisheries management as well as protected species conservation (Table 2). NMFS has been deploying observers at sea to monitor commercial fisheries since 1972, and observers are the primary source of discard data in U.S. fisheries today as well as a central pillar of the national fishery bycatch strategy. 51 At-sea catch monitoring is essential to provide managers and scientists with reliable estimates of total fishing mortality, basic information on composition of the catch and biological data used in stocks assessments, as well as information on gear performance, trip costs, crew size and other economic aspects of commercial fishing operations not obtainable by other means. The MSA s mandates for ACLs, AMs and bycatch minimization, as well as the growing use of quota-based catch share programs, place a premium on accurate catch accounting and monitoring information. Observer data are the most reliable source of information on bycatch and at-sea discards (including endangered, threatened, and protected species) and the best means of verifying self-reported logbook data, but innovative electronic monitoring technologies show promise as cost-effective supplements or alternatives (sometimes the only options) in some fisheries Table 2 Use of observer data in fisheries management. 52 Data Use Data Collected and Purpose Catch monitoring Bycatch Reduction Stock Assessment Protected Species Gear Research Catch, bycatch and discard data are collected to support fishing regulations such as quotas, catch limits, bycatch & discard allocations. Species-specific bycatch data by time, area, gear type and fishing sector are essential for the management of bycatch and discards. Species-specific data on catch, size, age, gender, maturity and other biological information are critical inputs for stock assessments. Interactions with protected species and data on the number of animals killed or seriously injured are vital for protected species management. Bycatch data by time, area, gear type and configuration are used in support of efforts to modify fishing gears to reduce bycatch. Recent increases in funding to the Observers budget line ($41 million in FY2010) enabled NMFS to expand days at sea coverage to 70,000 sea days in 45 fisheries nationwide in 2010 and expand coverage in high-priority fisheries such as the New England groundfish Sector Program and the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline reef fish fishery, in order to provide higher resolution data on bycatch and discards. 53,54 However, many of the nation s commercial fisheries have low levels of at-sea monitoring (1-3% of December 23,

18 fishing trips) or none at all (Fig. 12 below). 55 There is a large unmet need for expanded at-sea monitoring and fishery data collection in most regions: NMFS has been able to deploy observers in only about half of the fisheries that the agency has identified for coverage to monitor bycatch and at-sea discards, and is only able to provide adequate coverage in about one-third of those fisheries at present. 56 In many cases, current observer coverage is too low to give a representative sample of the fishing activities of the fleet, resulting in high levels of uncertainty in bycatch estimates. Inadequate funding in the Northeast region has forced NMFS to scale back observer days at sea and fall far short of target coverage levels needed to achieve statistically adequate confidence in estimates of bycatch and discards at sea for all its fisheries. 57 In the Southeast fisheries (South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean), current at sea-monitoring and collection of basic biological data from the fisheries is very low and the lack of fishery data is a key source of scientific and management uncertainty. A similar situation exists in some important Western Pacific fisheries, such as the Main Hawaiian Islands bottomfish fishery. New observer monitoring requirements for the Pacific groundfish Individual Trawl Quota (ITQ) program entail significant increases in funding to achieve the target coverage goal, and start-up funding for the restructured North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program is needed to begin implementation of the new system as the new fee-based industry funding mechanism builds up sufficient funds to pay for future observer deployments. The lack of basic information about the catch (quantity, species composition, size and age) or timely reporting of data remains a major source of scientific and management uncertainty in many fisheries and in the ACL-setting process. Investments to expand observer days at sea coverage and explore the use of alternative electronic monitoring technologies should be a high priority for funding in FY2012 and beyond. Fig. 12 Observer coverage levels by fishery and region in 2011 (based on fisheries evaluated by NMFS in ). The Southeast region has the greatest number of fisheries that need observers and the lowest levels of observer coverage overall, followed by the Pacific Islands region. Overall, more than half (51%) of the fisheries identified in this analysis have no observer coverage and nearly three-quarters (73%) have little or no coverage at present. Source: MFCN ( ) 4.4 RECREATIONAL FISHERIES CATCH MONITORING AND DATA COLLECTION December 23,

19 Recreational saltwater fisheries pose unique challenges for fishery managers trying to manage ACLs. Although recreational fisheries represent a small percentage of total U.S. marine fishery landings annually, saltwater angling can be a significant and sometimes the largest source of fishing mortality for some species in some fisheries. Despite their often sizeable economic and biological impacts, however, much less data are collected from recreational saltwater fisheries than commercial fisheries. 58 Recreational fisheries are inherently more difficult to monitor and manage due to the sheer number of participants and limited sampling of anglers catches. 59 The low level of data collection and lack of timely reporting of data are major sources of uncertainty in many recreational fisheries, particularly in the Southeast region. Improved sampling and timelier reporting of catch data are needed for successful management of marine recreational fisheries. 60 In 2010, a Blue Ribbon Panel of experts (BRP 2010) 61 highlighted the difficulty of acquiring recreational fisheries data in a timely manner and of sufficient precision for use in management, especially in terms of making in-season adjustments or closing fisheries to avoid exceeding ACLs. In 2011, NMFS convened a workshop on recreational data timeliness to evaluate options for decreasing the time between data collection and the availability for management purposes. Both reviews acknowledged the need to improve the quality of data and reduce the time between data collection and availability of the data for management use, as well as the need for additional funds to accomplish that goal: Improving Recreational Fisheries Data: Marine Recreational Fisheries Monitoring Program Surveying and monitoring the impacts of millions of individual saltwater anglers is no easy task. In the United States, NMFS began collecting marine recreational fishery catch, effort and participation data in 1979 through a program known as the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS). In 2006, a National Research Council review panel issued a report calling for a major overhaul of the MRFSS to address longstanding data quality issues. In response, the reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act of 2006 instructs the Secretary of Commerce (via NMFS) to implement the NRC s recommendations for a regionally based national saltwater angler registry program as well as improvements in the quality and accuracy of information generated by the MRFSS. The revamped program, known as the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), has completed a new saltwater angler registry and is currently testing and peer reviewing new methods to improve the quality and timeliness of recreational fishery data used to manage the fisheries. The MRIP s goal is to provide better regional monitoring of recreational fishing participation, catches, landings, and releases of finfish species in marine waters and estuaries for all 50 states and the U.S. territories and Commonwealths. Lack of timely and reliable data means recreational fisheries sometimes exceed their total allowable catch before management is able to recognize the problem and react. Without improvements in data, managers will need to exercise greater caution with the available data to address the high uncertainty associated with it, which can result in costly and controversial closures of fisheries that might be avoided with better data. Increased funding will be needed to decrease the time between data collection and its availability for management without degrading data quality. December 23,

20 In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, Congress appropriated approximately $21 million in total funding for NMFS programs that support marine recreational fisheries data collection and management. The Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) received $9 million of that total through two sources in the NMFS budget, Fisheries Research and Management Programs ($3.5 million) and Fisheries Statistics ($5.5 million). The President s FY2012 request included a $3 million increase to Fisheries Statistics for MRIP, which would increase its budget to $12 million (Fig. 13). Other important budget lines contributing to the marine recreational fisheries program are the Fish Information Networks (RecFIN, GulfFIN, ASMFC) and Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (EASA). Figure 13 Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) enacted funding FY At least two important recreational fishery surveys in the Southeast Region (the Southeast Headboat survey and the Atlantic For-Hire survey) are funded through the Southeast Fisheries Science Center s budget. Although NMFS has not provided an official estimate of how much the MRIP requires for full implementation, virtually everyone agrees that significant increases in funding are needed to realize its full potential. Increased funding for MRIP data collection will support expanded sampling of the fisheries and increase the precision and timeliness of estimates of catch and effort providing critical information that reduces uncertainty in the management of recreational sector ACLs. In addition, increased funding for MRIP should be directed toward pilot programs to test the expanded use of Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), electronic logbooks and other cost-effective electronic technologies that will help bring marine recreational fisheries management into the 21 st century. The for-hire sector, in particular, presents a promising opportunity to test the deployment of electronic technologies in recreational fisheries in order to provide more real-time recreational data for management and stock assessments. Increased investments in expanded data collection and timelier reporting of recreational catch data through the MRIP will improve the management and sustainability of recreational saltwater fisheries, which are vital sources of revenue for coastal economies and support nearly half a million jobs. In order to continue building MRIP s capabilities, funding for this program should be a high priority in FY2012 and beyond. December 23,

21 5. LONG-TERM NEEDS AND NEAR-TERM PRIORITIES: AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY It is relatively straightforward to say that NMFS needs additional resources. Determining exactly how much additional funding is required is another matter in part that is a function of existing obligations, near-term priorities, and longer-term management objectives. In 2003, NMFS undertook its own needs assessment, which provides one benchmark against which to evaluate the adequacy of current and proposed future funding (NMFS 2003). 62 In that report, NMFS identified the need for significant increases in fish stock assessment and monitoring programs (totaling $179 million) by 2009 to keep pace with its requirements, including: An increase in the EASA budget line of $79.3million above the FY2003 level by FY2009 to meet national requirements for preventing overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks; An increase in the Observers and Training budget line of $100 million above the FY2003 level by FY2009 to meet national bycatch monitoring objectives. These figures can be compared directly to current funding. In the case of EASA funding, by 2009 the actual increase was just under 30% of the projected requirement. Although there was a large increase to EASA in FY2010, and a further large increase is proposed for FY2012 in the President s budget submission to Congress, the total proposed level in 2012 is still only 63% of the total amount required by 2009 in the 2003 needs assessment (Fig. 14). In the case of Observers and Training, recent ( ) congressional appropriations have ranged from $32-41 million for NMFS observer programs only 26-34% of the projected need by 2009 ($122 million), based on 2003 funding of $22 million (Fig.15). This is one measure of funding need for core programs, but much has changed since The needs assessment undertaken by NMFS in 2003 is now 8 years old and should be updated, particularly in light of the addition of performance measures such as the FSSI (in 2005) and the additional demand for stock assessments brought about by the 2006 MSA reauthorization and the new ACL requirement for all U.S. fisheries. Fig. 14. Cumulative projected increase in EASA funding above FY2003 in NMFS 2003 needs assessment vs. actual cumulative increase in funding FY Fig. 15. Cumulative projected increase in Observers/Training funding above FY2003 in NMFS 2003 needs assessment vs. actual cumulative increase in funding FY December 23,

22 5.1 STOCK ASSESSMENTS Pending an updated needs assessment, some measure of funding requirement linked to credible management objectives and performance targets is needed to enable funding planning and decisions to proceed. One such target is the goal of providing high-quality, predictive assessments for the subset of 230 major stocks in the FSSI. 63 The FSSI provides a yardstick for measuring of the performance of the stock assessment program, as well as a clear management target for evaluating long-term funding and resource needs. Therefore a reasonable target is to complete assessments on the FSSI stocks that are unassessed beyond 2013, based on the number of stocks anticipated to have adequate assessments by that time (~150) with current ( ) funding for EASA and related survey and monitoring programs. Assuming that near-term goal is achieved, it would leave 80 FSSI stocks without adequate assessments. NMFS estimates that assessing the 80 remaining FSSI stocks could require an as much as $80 million in new funding. Although the estimated $80 million price tag includes NMFS program-funded days at sea for surveys that support stock assessments and other monitoring costs, it does not include OMAOfunded days at sea on NOAA fishery survey vessels (FSVs). Hence if the number of NMFS programfunded days increases (e.g. due to shortfalls in the OMAO budget), then this estimate would likely be too low. The estimate also does not include NMFS infrastructure costs such as buildings, laboratories, and administrative overhead. Although this amount of new funding for expanding stock assessments is unlikely to be available in the near-term, it reflects a long-term funding need to achieve the agency s objective of raising the stock assessment output for all major U.S. fishery stocks to Tier II of the 2001 Stock Assessment Improvement Plan i.e. all core species assessed to at least Level 3 and adequate baseline monitoring for all federally managed species (including rare species). 64 In the near-term, incremental increases in funding will be needed to keep pace with the demands for assessments or assessment updates for the highest-priority stocks (some of which may not be FSSI stocks). According to Congressional testimony on the proposed FY2012 budget, NMFS intends to prioritize the updating of assessments for commercially and recreationally valuable stocks and associated vulnerable stocks with high scientific or management uncertainty that constrain the ability to take the full ACLs for healthier stocks. At the same time, stocks subject to overfishing will be specifically targeted for assessments until overfishing is no longer occurring. Prioritization of stocks for updated or new assessments is undertaken regionally in conjunction with the appropriate regional fishery management councils or international fishery management organizations. NMFS scientists 65 have suggested the following list of criteria for prioritizing stock assessment work: Intensity of fishing (overfishing) Stock status (overfished) Assessment age (stale information) Stock importance (socioeconomic impacts) Synergistic factors (leveraging resources) Negative factors (e.g., transboundary issues) FSSI versus non-fssi stock Decisions about near-term priorities will ultimately depend on regionally specific factors, including the availability of sufficient data to conduct new assessments or update existing assessments. December 23,

23 To achieve the immediate assessment needs for high-priority stocks related to the implementation of ACLs and ending overfishing, both the President s FY2012 budget request and the final FY2012 enacted appropriations increase EASA funding substantially (Table 3 below). Not all of the new money for EASA will go to directly to the development of new assessments, since a substantial amount of the EASA budget funds survey and monitoring programs that provide the necessary data for assessment work. 66 However, NMFS has indicated that recent increases in EASA funding for stock assessments in could increase the number of major FSSI stocks with adequate assessments from 133 in 2011 to 139 in , and as many as 150 beyond Assuming that NMFS is not forced to use EASA funds to cover shortfalls in other programs or in OMAO base-funded days at sea for NOAA FSVs, the proposed levels of funding for FY2012 shown in Table 3 could increase the number of FSSI stocks by a comparable amount in the period to as many of (70% or more of FSSI stocks). TABLE 3 NOAA/NMFS Fisheries Research and Management Budget Line Recent funding for EASA and proposed funding for FY2012 FY2009 Enacted Budget FY2010 Enacted Budget FY2011 Full-Year CR FY2012 President s Request FY2012 Mini-bus (million $) (million $) (million $) (million $) (million $) Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (EASA) Once a given level of assessment capability is achieved, the amount of funding required per year on an on-going basis to maintain the currency of the additional assessments will depend on the frequency with which they are updated. 67 NMFS is currently reviewing its performance targets for the frequency of updating stock assessments. Pending that analysis, one measure of current performance is to compare today s annual assessment output to the annual output required to ensure that all FSSI assessments would be updated at least once every three years if all 230 stocks were assessed. To achieve the latter objective, an average of 77 assessments or updates per year would have to be performed. By contrast, NMFS completed an average of 58 adequate assessments of FSSI stocks per year between 2004 and This suggests that NMFS needs to increase its average annual output by 19 assessments, or 33% higher than in recent years. Table 4. Summary table of funding needs for stock assessments. Incremental funding Budget line requirements for 2012 and beyond EASA EASA, Fisheries Research and Management Programs, Fisheries Statistics, Survey and Monitoring Projects, Observers/Training $15.4 million in 2012 (over February 2011 CR) ~$80 million Purpose Near-term amount to expand assessments, increase the frequency of updating, provide adequate funding to maintain survey and monitoring data streams The approximate total amount required to increase the total number of FSSI stocks assessed from 150 (target for FY2013) to 230 (100% of requirement) 5.2 FISHERY-INDEPENDENT SURVEYS December 23,

24 This report has identified clear needs to increase funding both to maintain or expand existing surveys and invest in the development of new surveys: In the Alaska region, funding must be secured to maintain the current cycle of Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands bottom trawl surveys, estimated to cost $4.2 million annually. On the West Coast, there is a need to increase the frequency of the Pacific whiting hydroacoustic survey from every two years to annual at a cost of approximately $1 million per additional survey. In the Southeast region, there is a need to expand the MARMAP and SEAMAP resource surveys to better assess the abundance of species in the snapper/grouper and reef fish stock complexes. The Southeast Area Monitoring Assessment and Prediction (SEAMAP), funded at $5.1 million in FY 2010, provides a variety of fishery-independent surveys supporting regional stock assessment and management activities in four Council regions 68 in addition to being the primary fishery-independent survey information used in Gulf of Mexico stock assessments. The Marine Resources Monitoring Assessment and Prediction (MARMAP) survey, funded at $0.842 million in FY2010, provides the only fishery-independent data collection program in the South Atlantic snapper-grouper complex, including red snapper. There is also a need to expand the application of new technologies such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to conduct specialized non-extractive surveys for vulnerable West Coast rockfish, Hawaiian Islands bottomfish, Caribbean reef fish, and other species whose marine habitats are Regional Case Studies: difficult to survey Expanded South Atlantic Fishery Resource Survey using conventional fishing gears, The need for a comprehensive survey of reef fish resources in the South Atlantic although the cost of has long been recognized, but obtaining the resources necessary for such an making these undertaking had proven difficult. In 2009, a new South Atlantic survey for reef fish investigations and of was proposed at the South Atlantic Fishery Independent Monitoring Program the subsequent Workshop. 1 Fishery resource assessments in the region had previously relied on surveys is presently the limited coverage provided by fishery-independent monitoring programs such unknown. as MARMAP, and in many cases relied solely upon fishery-dependent NOAA s observations. The Southeast Fishery-Independent Survey (SEFIS) commenced in 2010 as a direct product of the workshop. SEFIS works cooperatively with the Office of Marine and MARMAP sampling program to provide fishery-independent data to support reef Aviation Operations fish stock assessments and perform reef fish ecology research. Funding for SEFIS (OMAO) has reduced extends the geographic range of MARMAP to cover the core area between North Carolina and northern Florida, providing improved abundance indices and its total base-funded days at sea (DAS) 40% biological information, thereby reducing uncertainty in stock assessments.. since 2007 and is Recent annual funding for MARMAP has been $842,000, and the expanded SEFIS currently operating its survey is estimated to cost $1.5 million. SEFIS illustrates how targeted fleet of 10 fishery investments in improved data collection for high-priority fisheries can achieve survey vessels (FSVs) large reductions in uncertainty and provide more reliable baseline estimates of far below their fish stock abundance for use in future stock assessments. maximum operating tempo due to rising costs of operations and budget constraints, which has direct bearing on NMFS s ability to maintain regularly scheduled resource surveys. December 23,

25 The NOAA President s FY2012 budget for NMFS seeks an increase of $16.2 million for Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (EASA) above the enacted FY2010 level of $50.9 million, part of which would go toward six proposed new fishery-independent surveys by The EASA-requested funding level is intended to cover improved fishery-independent surveys using advanced sampling technologies, including the deployment of new submersible AUVs and other innovative technologies, in order to provide data for data-poor stocks in regions that are inaccessible to conventional sampling gear and to support assessments of currently unassessed stocks in out-years. 69 The Survey and Monitoring Projects budget would receive $24.2 million to maintain resource monitoring activities for bluefin tuna, red snapper, West Coast groundfish, Maine and New Hampshire inshore trawl surveys, Chesapeake Bay multi-species surveys, Bering Sea pollock surveys and Gulf of Maine groundfish surveys, all of which contribute vital data to maintain and update adequate stock assessments. The MARMAP funding of $0.842 million (equal to FY2010 funding) is intended to maintain the reef fish monitoring on the continental shelf from Cape Lookout, NC to Fort Pierce, FL in 2012, 2014, and 2016, supplemented by the Southeast Fishery-Independent Survey (SEFIS), which began in 2010 at an estimated cost of $1.5 million for additional ship time, not including other survey-related costs. A more comprehensive region-wide survey is estimated to cost as much as $11 million. 70 SEAMAP, now under the Regional Studies budget line, would receive $5.1 million (equal to FY2010 funding) to continue its fishery-independent surveys in conjunction with state and university partnerships through cooperative agreements with states from North Carolina to Texas as well as the U.S. Virgin Island and Puerto Rico. As noted above and in Section 3, the EASA budget includes significant expenditures on survey and monitoring projects. In 2010, nearly $14 million (37%) of the EASA budget line was allocated to surveys, including $7.4 million for survey charters. In recent years, however, rising survey operating costs (in part attributable to rising fuel costs) and shortfalls in survey funding in other programs have forced NMFS to draw on additional EASA funds to maintain critical data streams for stock assessments, covering both charter vessel costs and Fig. 16 Trends in funding for Survey and Monitoring Projects FY the buyback of FSV days at sea. In FY , cuts in funding to several components of the Survey and Monitoring budget line required the re-allocation of funding from the EASA budget to maintain those critical data streams for use in stock assessments, and a recent House Appropriations Committee CJS bill proposes comparable cuts to Survey and Monitoring on FY2012 (Fig. 16). If the House Appropriations Committee s proposed cuts to Survey and Monitoring Projects in FY2012 are enacted into law, NMFS could once again find itself in the position of having to rob Peter to pay Paul to cover the shortfall. December 23,

26 In addition, the rising costs of deploying ships at sea and other OMAO maintenance costs have eroded the funds available for deploying NOAA s fleet of 10 FSVs in recent years, as discussed in Sec As a consequence, NOAA FSVs are spending considerably fewer and fewer days at sea (DAS) overall (Fig. 17). Since 2007, OMAO base-funded DAS have declined about 40% (from 2,012 sea-days to only 1,209). Average DAS/FSV have declined steadily as well and are now far below the target utilization rate of 235 DAS/vessel/year: from an average of 194 DAS/vessel/year in 2007 to only 134 DAS/vessel/year in 2011 (Fig. 18). Fig. 17 NMFS FSV days at sea (DAS), versus OMAO base-funded DAS Fig. 18 OMAO base-funded DAS/FSV The inability of OMAO to operate its FSVs at anywhere near their optimal or target utilization rates has resulted in the gap between OMAO base-funded days and actual DAS required to conduct fishery surveys in recent years (shown in Fig. 17). The difference between OMAO s base-funded DAS for FSVs and the actual number of DAS required to conduct fishery-independent surveys has amounted to as much as $5.2 million/year that NMFS has had to re-allocate from the EASA budget line to cover OMAO s budget shortfalls in recent years. In all, NMFS has spent $14.3 million in program funded days (PFDs) since 2007 to buy back sea days on NOAA FSVs due to insufficient base-funded DAS in the OMAO budget. The annual buyback could have been $5.5 million in 2011 but for the allocation of additional stopgap funding to OMAO in May Despite this intervention, and without a longer-term solution, the potential requirement for NMFS to spend part of its budget to buy back sea days on FSVs is expected to continue in future years. The OMAO planned budget for 2012 of $106 million (ship operation and maintenance, shore side costs and augmentation) assumes an operating target of 148 DAS per vessel only 63% of maximum operating tempo. 71 The additional funding required for OMAO to operate the NOAA FSVs at full capacity (235 DAS/year) can be estimated based on the variable platform costs (including fuel) and the incremental costs associated with maintenance, salaries, and other expenses. Assuming a target utilization rate of 235 DAS/year/vessel, the difference between the target and actual DAS across all FSVs in 2011 is 920 days. Using OMAO data for variable costs of ship time in 2012, we calculate that $9.6 million would be required in additional funding to increase the FSV utilization rate from the 2011 level of 134 DAS/vessel to 235 DAS/vessel, but this increase would not be adequate to achieve full utilization of NOAA s entire fleet (17 active vessels). Assuming that the total fleet utilization rate and operating costs are comparable to that of FSVs, the cost of bringing the entire NOAA fleet closer to full utilization would be considerably higher. By one estimate, an additional $23 million would be needed December 23,

27 to bring the total fleet-wide utilization rate up to 182 DAS per vessel in 2013 and as much as $33 million would be need to achieve full utilization. Estimating the funding required to maintain and expand the chartered surveys using fishing vessels (accounting for nearly half of all surveys conducted in 2009) is more difficult. A large portion of the EASA expenditure on vessel charters has reportedly been used to maintain the North Pacific bottom trawl surveys in recognition of the overarching importance of Alaska fisheries to the nation s seafood harvest (about half of all seafood caught comes from the Alaska region) and their economic importance. In 2011, for the first time ever, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) was unable to conduct their regularly scheduled annual and biennial surveys without an infusion of emergency funds from NMFS Headquarters. The annual cost of these surveys is estimated to be $4.2 million and the expectation is that the requirement for supplemental funds from Headquarters in FY2012 will be similar to that in FY2011. Our research indicates that the total incremental cost of maintaining the Alaska groundfish fisheries and other charter vessel surveys (including projected cost increases in line with recent trends) is approximately $8.25 million per year. Additional funds of about $1 million are needed to increase the frequency of the existing biennial hydroacoustic survey for West Coast Pacific hake (whiting) to annual. A summary of survey funding needs above current funding levels in key NMFS and OMAO budget lines is provided in Table 5. Table 5. Summary table of funding needs for fishery-independent surveys in FY2012 and beyond. Budget line Incremental funding FY2012 and beyond Purpose Maintaining Existing Surveys OMAO base funding of NOAA Fishery Survey Vessel days at sea Survey and Monitoring Projects (charter vessel surveys) Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (new surveys) Survey and Monitoring Projects (expansion of existing surveys) Survey and Monitoring Projects, EASA, OMAO (expansion of existing surveys) Survey and Monitoring Projects, EASA, OMAO (expansion of existing surveys) $23 million in 2013 to reach a fleetwide operating tempo of 182 DAS per vessel; $32 million plus additional maintenance and overtime to reach full operating capacity of 235 DAS. $7 million/year plus annual increases in line with the projected increase in charter vessel operating costs of recent years ($5 million over the period 2011 to 2015). Total: $8.25 million/year New and Enhanced Surveys Included in the President s FY2012 requested increase of $16.2 million above FY2010 for EASA $1 million in 2012 and subsequent even years $ million $unknown To enable NOAA research vessel to increase base funded DAS and mitigate the need for NMFS and other Line Offices to buyback days to maintain surveys. To remove need for diverting EASA funding to cover charter vessel survey costs (e.g. Alaska surveys), and cover the cost increases expected for charter surveys up to Investigate application of specialized nonextractive submersible surveys for West Coast rockfish, Hawaii bottomfish and others. Increase Pacific whiting acoustic survey frequency to annual; SEFIS survey: enhancement of MARMAP survey in the South Atlantic to better survey the snapper/grouper complex and specifically reduce uncertainty in the red snapper assessment. Enhancement of SEAMAP survey in the Gulf of Mexico to better survey the reef fish stock complex and specifically reduce uncertainty in the red snapper assessment. December 23,

28 5.3 COMMERCIAL FISHERIES CATCH MONITORING DATA: AT-SEA OBSERVERS Catch monitoring is essential to provide managers and scientists with reliable estimates of fishing mortality as well as basic information on composition of the catch and biological data used in stocks assessments. Improvement in at-sea monitoring is of critical importance to reducing scientific and management uncertainty in many federal fisheries, yet recent congressional appropriations of $32-41 million for NMFS observer programs are only 26-34% of the projected need by 2009 ($122 million), based on the 2003 NMFS needs assessment discussed in the introduction to this section (see Fig.15 above and Fig. 19). Fishing industry funding has added about $15 million to that total in recent years, but nearly all of it comes from the largest sectors of the Alaska groundfish fisheries. Figure 19. Funding for regional observer programs FY Observer coverage has varied widely by region and fishery, from levels of % in most Alaska groundfish fisheries (except for vessels under 60 feet in length) and % in the Pacific Coast groundfish fisheries to as little as 1-3% in many of the fisheries along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts. 72 To some extent, regional disparities in coverage reflect differences in history, fisheries and observer program goals and objectives, 73 but the actual level of coverage is often dictated largely by the availability of funds. Commercial fisheries in which industry funding pays a significant share of the cost of deploying observers have consistently higher observer days at sea and coverage as a percentage of fishing trips, but they are few in number. 74 The North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program (NPGOP), the oldest and largest fishery observer program in the nation, is unique in that industry funding accounts for nearly three-quarters of total funding. 75 In 2009, there were more than 67,000 observer-days across 41 federal fisheries. Thanks to increased federal funding in FY2010 (Table 6), NMFS was able to increase the number of sea days observed to approximately 70,000, covering 45 fisheries nationwide. 76 The increased funding has enabled NMFS to expand coverage in high-priority fisheries. Beginning in 2010, for example, the Northeast Fishery Observer Program increased its target coverage goal to 38% in the limited-access Sector fisheries (8% in the non-sector fisheries) of New England. Also in 2010, NMFS increased its target observer coverage level in the bottom longline component of the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery to 4%. 77 Nevertheless, inadequate funding in the Northeast Region overall has forced NMFS to scale back observer days at sea during (despite a targeted increase in sea days in the New England groundfish Sectors December 23,

29 Program) and fall far short of target coverage levels needed to achieve statistically adequate confidence in estimates of bycatch and discards at sea in all fisheries requiring observer coverage. 78 Nationwide, one-third (23/84) of fisheries identified as needing observer coverage in 2004 are considered to have adequate coverage today, 79 and half of those fisheries have low levels of at-sea monitoring (1-3% of fishing trips) or none at all (as shown in Fig. 12 above). 80 Despite making incremental progress, many fisheries still lack adequate observer coverage., The President s FY2012 request of $39.1 million to the Observers/Training line, representing a cut of nearly $2 million from the enacted FY2010 level, would mean a significant loss in the already limited capacity of the program to deploy observers where needed (Table 6) at a time when demand for the fishery catch information provided by observers is increasing marked the release of the NOAA Catch Shares Policy for the use of catch share programs in fishery management plans, and the first year of implementation of ACLs for stocks subject to overfishing. Data collected by observers and at-sea monitors will be critical to monitor catch and bycatch quotas under which catch shares are managed and for ensuring that catch limits are not exceeded. Table 6. Federal Observer Program funding in Omnibus Appropriations Acts of 2009 and 2010, 1 by regional program, FY2011 continuing resolution (CR), and FY12 President s Request FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2009 FY 2010 NOAA/NMFS Budget Line: full-year (H.R Observers and Training CR Mini-bus ) (million $) (million $) (million $) (million $) Atlantic Coast Observers East Coast Observers Hawaii Longline Observer Program N. Pacific Groundfish Observer Program NE Groundfish Court-Ordered Observers National Observer Program S. Atlantic/Gulf Shrimp Observers West Coast Observers Total Funds appropriated for the Reducing Bycatch budget line and other federal funding may be used to deploy observer but are not included in the regional observer budget lines and totals. Funding needs are linked to observer coverage requirements, but there is no single recommended observer coverage level that can be applied to every fishery the level of coverage needed will depend on the purpose for which the observer data is being used, the size of the fishery, distribution of catch and bycatch, and spatial stratification of the fishery. 81 In some cases, 100% observer coverage may be necessary and appropriate for example, to monitor fishery incidental catch of a highly endangered species, or to monitor compliance with individual catch shares in a Limited Access Privilege (LAP) program. Babcock and Pikitch (2003) suggested that coverage levels of at least 20% for common species, and 50% for rare species, would give reasonably good estimates of bycatch. 82 In a national bycatch report in 2004, NMFS recommended a performance standard for estimation of at-sea bycatch and discards of protected species and fishery resources at a precision level with a coefficient of variation (CV) in the range of 20-30%. 83 In most observed fisheries today, observer coverage is too low to give a representative sample of the fishing activities of the fleet, resulting in high levels of uncertainty in December 23,

30 bycatch estimates. 84 Inconsistent funding also negatively impacts sampling effort over time, creating additional sources of bias and uncertainty in observer data. While recognizing the difficulty of determining the precise level of funding required to achieve management objectives in a particular fishery, it is clear that observer program funding will need to increase significantly in future years to keep pace with the demand for timely, high-quality fisheries data. Continued robust federal funding and oversight by NMFS is essential to administer programs, train an effective observer corps, and ensure data quality, but commercial fishing industry funding of the cost of deploying observers (including travel costs, insurance and wages) is also likely to be necessary to achieve significantly higher coverage levels in many fisheries. 85 Electronic Monitoring (EM) Electronic monitoring also shows promise as a cost-effective way to augment and compliment monitoring by at-sea observers. These systems can be deployed on fishing vessels to monitor fishing location, catch, catch handling, fishing methods, and protected species interactions. 1 Vessel monitoring systems (VMS) are already widely used to transmit information about vessel position during fishing trips, providing a cost-effective way to monitor compliance with seasonal and area closures. Other forms of EM, such as video-based monitoring in conjunction with port sampling of the catch, can be used to monitor compliance in fisheries where vessels are required to retain all catch at sea. One example of the use of video monitoring in conjunction with port sampling is the shore-based West Coast hake electronic monitoring program, which is estimated to cost onequarter or less of deploying at-sea observers. The cost structure for EM is different than traditional observer programs, however, involving relatively high upfront equipment costs but lower daily operating costs. The use of EM technologies warrants more attention, but there are a number of considerations that could limit its expansion in the short-term. While EM can serve a similar role to that of an at-sea observer, trained observers cannot be replaced by EM for tasks such as biological sampling and, in many cases, species identification. At the national level, MFCN (2010) estimates it could cost as much as $70 million above recent funding levels to bring all currently observed fisheries up to a level of at least 20% coverage. 86 In addition, it could cost at least $15.5 million to achieve minimal baseline or pilot-level observer coverage in fisheries that currently have no coverage or negligible (<1%) coverage. 87 These numbers are consistent with the conclusions of a recent (2011) NMFS national bycatch report, which indicates the need to nearly double observer sea days on fishing trips to improve fishery bycatch estimation. 88 However, incremental increases in funding for expanded observer coverage in targeted regions and fisheries could also produce large gains in data quality and significantly reduce both scientific and management uncertainty. For example, the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery observer program covered only about 1% of fishing trips in 2008, but coverage could be increased 10-fold with an investment of up to $4.76 million annually (see Table 7 below). Other examples of near-term funding priorities and investment opportunities identified in this project include: Current NMFS observer program funding in the Northeast falls well short (by 5,603 observer sea days) of the amount needed to achieve the required performance standard for estimation of atsea discards across all fishing fleets in the fishing year. Based on estimated daily costs of deploying NMFS observers or less highly trained At-Sea Monitors (ASMs), filling this shortfall in sea days could cost $5.04 million to $6.72 million. 89 Covering the shortfall in sea days December 23,

31 needed to achieve the performance standard for individual fleets of highest priority would cost less. There are at least six major fisheries of high concern for bycatch and at-sea discards in the Southeast and Northeast where observer coverage is currently less than 3%: the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico shrimp otter trawl fishery, Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery, Northeast small-mesh trawl (Squid, Mackerel, Butterfish) and large-mesh trawl fisheries, the Mid-Atlantic Illex squid trawl fishery, and the Mid-Atlantic coastal gillnet fishery. Total funding required to provide adequate observer coverage in all these fisheries has not been determined, but an identified shortfall of 3,745 observer sea days in for the Northeast small-mesh otter trawl fleet could cost $3.37 million to $4.49 million, based on costs of deploying ASMs or NMFS observers. The Alaska Fisheries Science Center is currently seeking one-time start-up funding of $3.8 million for FY2012 to cover the transition costs to a new fee-based industry funding mechanism for all North Pacific groundfish and halibut fishing vessels that currently have less than 100% observer coverage requirements. This amount includes the cost of the new deployment system during 2013 while industry fees accrue in the observer fund in sufficient amounts to begin paying for deployments in The restructured program will enable NMFS to expand coverage to all vessels in the groundfish and halibut fleets and obtain more statistically reliable information in fisheries where current observer coverage requirements introduce bias in the data, thereby reducing a large source of scientific and management uncertainty. The new West Coast trawl Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) program now requires 100% observer coverage in the groundfish fleet, but managers have not yet fully determined the cost of achieving that target. A summary of long-term funding needs and near-term priorities for commercial fishery catch monitoring is provided in Table 7. Table 7. Summary table of funding needs for commercial fishery monitoring in FY2012 and beyond. Budget line Incremental funding requirements for 2012 and beyond Purpose Observers/Training $60-77 million above 2008 level To bring all currently observed fisheries up to a level of at least 20% coverage (MFCN 2010) Observers/Training $15.5 million above 2008 level To achieve minimal baseline or pilotlevel observer coverage in fisheries that currently have no coverage or negligible (<1%) coverage (MFCN 2010) Observers/Training $5.04 million to $6.72 million To add 5,603 observer sea days in order to attain desired coverage for all fleets in the Northeast groundfish fisheries (NEFSC 2011). Observers/Training $4.76 million/year To increase ten-fold the coverage in the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery observer program (coverage in 2008 about 1% of fishing trips). December 23,

32 Budget line Observers/Training Incremental funding requirements for 2012 and beyond $3.8 million one-time funding Purpose To cover the transition costs to a new fee-based industry funding mechanism for all North Pacific groundfish and halibut fishing vessels that currently have less than 100% observer coverage requirements 5.4 IMPROVING MARINE RECREATIONAL FISHERIES MONITORING AND DATA This report has identified a high need for increased investments in expanded data collection and timelier reporting of recreational catch data to improve the management and sustainability of recreational saltwater fisheries, especially when making in-season adjustments in catch levels or fishing seasons to avoid exceeding ACLs. 90 The uncertainty associated with recreational fisheries information poses major challenges for managing recreational fishing sector ACLs, but improvements in timeliness of data for ACL management could actually reduce the quality of the estimates and increase uncertainty if not done properly. Most recreational data come from self-reporting through randomized phone surveys combined with dockside monitoring and creel surveys. These sampling procedures normally cover a small proportion of the fishing effort and rarely include validation of the self-reported data. More sampling could improve precision of the estimates, but would not necessarily improve biases associated with underrepresented elements of the recreational fishery. The BRP made a number of recommendations for improvements to data, including: Prioritization of Species. Prioritize monitoring and data collection systems toward species with high ecological and economic importance, including those overfished or undergoing overfishing. Prioritization of Biases. A number of known biases affect the accuracy of catch estimates. A redesign of data collection and monitoring programs should prioritize reducing or eliminated biases to improve accuracy of and confidence in the data. Catch-and-Release and Discard Mortality. Increasing catch and release fisheries requires knowledge of the survival or mortality of released fish. Verification of amounts of discards and independent estimates of the mortality of the discards would improve confidence in the accuracy and precision of the estimates. Standardized Trip Definition. Future programs should clarify the data needed from recreational trips (i.e., actual time fished) to improve estimates of catch and effort such that the CPUE directly relates to abundance of target species. Quality Control Check. Future programs need quality control checks to assure useful and valid data. The Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) Implementation plan highlights a number of projects underway and in planning that will continue the improvements of the recreational sampling program, including methodological enhancements that address NRC recommendations and provide a full suite of acceptable survey designs. 91 MRIP will develop and maintain a suite of acceptable survey December 23,

33 designs for use by both NMFS and its various interstate commission and state agency partners in the implementation of new regional data collection programs. Estimating how much funding is required to achieve effective implementation of these sampling and monitoring improvements is difficult because the funding level needed to bring the MRIP program fully up to a capacity is still under review. At present the specific operational goals have not been finalized, therefore estimates of costs are not available. Costs will ultimately depend on consideration of monitoring strategies and coverage levels that will achieve goals set by fishery managers and fishing stakeholders within the unique requirements of fisheries within a region. Nevertheless, no one doubts that the range of activities necessary to improve timeliness, precision, and accuracy of recreational fisheries data will require substantially more funding than currently allocated to MRIP and associated programs. NMFS has estimated, for example, that increasing the frequency of recreational catch reporting from bimonthly waves to one-month intervals while maintaining the same level of precision would require about a 50% increase in sampling effort. Additional work on defining management objectives and costs is urgently needed to inform congressional appropriations and future funding. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, Congress appropriated approximately $21 million in total funding for NMFS programs that support marine recreational fisheries data collection and management. The MRIP received $9 million of that total through two sources in the NMFS budget, Fisheries Research and Management Programs ($3.5 million) and Fisheries Statistics ($5.5 million). Other important budget lines contributing to the marine recreational fisheries program are the Fish Information Networks (RecFIN, GulfFIN, ASMFC) and Expanding Annual Stock Assessments (EASA) (Fig. 20). At least two important recreational fishery surveys in the Southeast Region (the Southeast Headboat survey and the Atlantic For-Hire survey) are funded through the Southeast Fisheries Science Center s budget. Figure 20 Marine recreational fisheries funding by NMFS budget line for 2010 Figure 21 Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) enacted funding FY As part of a stepwise effort to ramp up funding for MRIP from the current level of $9 million, the President s FY2012 budget requested an increase of $3 million for Fisheries Statistics in FY 2012 to be directed toward MRIP (Fig. 21). $2 million of that amount would go toward more timely production of catch data for management in two NMFS regions by FY2016 (the Northeast and Southeast), and $1 million would go toward improving catch data in the For- Hire recreational fishing sector. 92 Three new December 23,