Report on the German Catch Quota Management trial 2012 - 2014

Open Access

Abstract

From May 2012 on, two North Sea trawlers, NC302 Helgoland (in the later stage NC322 Helgoland) and NC315 Victoria, were equipped with a Remote Electronic Monitoring-System (REM-system) installed under supervision of the German Federal Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries. In accordance with the European legislation for catch quota management trials for North Sea fisheries targeting cod, an additional cod quota was granted to the participating vessels. Even with some technical and software issues, the utilized system was able to record fishing activities during the whole period. The linkage between sensor data and video footage provided substantially more accurate data about the fishing behavior than the electronic logbook (Elog). However, the logistic effort to receive the data from the vessels was high and the analysis of the REM data was very time consuming. During the three years trial, the rate of unwanted cod bycatch ranged between 0.0 and 9.43 % of the cod catches of these vessels depending on the fishing ground and gear.