Groundfish Trawl Task Force – Finding common ground on fisheries data
Building consensus between commercial fishermen, conservationists and marine regulators is no easy task. But a long, patient effort led by Congressman Seth Moulton’s office seems to be making progress,,, For years, NOAA has relied on data from two research trawlers. The Albatross IV was used between 1963 and 2008, and the Bigelow since then. NOAA currently combines data from both vessels when making regulatory decisions. That is despite the often-flawed data supplied by the Albatross IV over the years. The Albatross IV was at the center of the “Trawlgate” controversy of the early 2000s, when NOAA scientists had to concede the trawler used the wrong nets, likely missing hundreds of thousands of fish. Yet regulators stood by that data to set low catch limits based on the admittedly flawed numbers. >click to read< 10:25
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