PacFIN Brief for 2001

[Complete 2001 PSMFC Annual Report (1.2 MB pdf)]

During 2001, software development and maintenance efforts in the PacFIN office focused upon: report and code list additions to the PacFIN website, retrievals and software fixes for the W-O-C Trawl Logbook subsystem, development of validation routines for Limited Entry Permit(LEP)data, resumption of data feeds from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans(DFO), and new ADFG aggregated catch data feeds. The processing that produces corrected gear group data was integrated with regular monthly production procedures in 2001. A method for translating vessel, processor, and NWR/LE permit identifiers to fictitious identifiers was also developed.

Additionally, a number of requests were processed that included access to detailed level catch and confidential level fish ticket data. As a result of concerns raised by the fishing industry and the W-O-C fishery agency directors, the Pacific Coast Fisheries Data Committee (PCFDC) policy on access to confidential economic data from the commercial W-O-C fisheries was reviewed and modified by PacFIN staff. This revised policy was submitted to the PCFDC at its November meeting for review and approval.

The PacFIN Office processed 164 data feeds from seven data sources and responded to 146 requests-for-information. There were also 107,263 visits to PSMFC's PacFIN website for an average of 8,939 visits per month. This compares to 8,145 per month in 2000 and 5,500 per month in 1999.

Software was developed in order to produce retrievals from the W-O-C Trawl Logbook subsystem. Other work on the Trawl Logbook subsystem included software fixes associated with the rejection of some CDFG records. A fix was also made for the phenomenon of multiple fish-tickets having the same identifier in some WDFW records.

New code list reports were added to the existing set of standard reports available on the PSMFC PacFIN website. This suite of reports consists of all W-O-C state agency species, gear, and port codes. These reports allow the fisheries community and the general public to view the composition of each PacFIN code. Although many PacFIN codes have a one-to-one relation with state agency codes, there are many PacFIN codes that incorporate two or more codes for the same state agency.

A new landing condition code was added to the domain of allowable landing conditions. The 'J' code was added in order to provide a better definition for CDFG's fish-ticket-lines where condition was unspecified('U'). The definition for this new code is: "most probably landed in the round, but some landings with 'J' could be other than that of round". All CDFG rows with condition = 'U' were changed to condition = 'J', since this code provides a better description of the actual, or possible, landing condition.

The standard report #316 (Quarterly Management Group Report) was added to the website. This report contains non-confidential data as do all standard reports available via the PSMFC PacFIN website. This report was developed as a result of frequent requests by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) for numbers of vessels catching fish within each management group and in each quarter. The USCG uses this data for their periodic planning exercises.

A new set of standard data files was added to the suite of standard reports posted to the PSMFC PacFIN website each month. These data files are comma-delimited and contain catch by month, PFMC/INPFC area, lowest level grid, and each data source (WA, OR, CA, ASP, AJV, ACN). The data files contain estimates of catch for all years starting with 1981 and include records for both the actual and nominal spid codes if applicable. These data files are refreshed monthly and are intended to provide a convenient method for clients to obtain the necessary estimates of catch for 1981 through the present.

Due to concerns raised by the fishing industry and subsequently the state fishery agency directors, a method for translating vessel, processor, and NWR/LE permit identifiers to fictitious identifiers was developed. An individual viewing fish-ticket landing receipt data using these fictitious identifiers is not able to associate landings with a particular vessel or processor. Maintenance of this fictitious identifier method has been incorporated into the monthly production system so that any new vessel, processor, or permit identifier that comes into the system receives a fictitious identifier. The fictitious identifiers are only used in lieu of actual identifiers in selected applications.

A new table named VESGRPRD was created for the NMFS/ST1 office after they submitted a request for vessel gear usage and time-periods spent fishing with each gear-type. The purpose of the request was to determine whether the USCG vessel safety program is including the smaller (less than 5 net tons) vessels in their studies. The table contains each vessel, each gear-type used, the earliest and latest dates of each gear-type usage, and the number of trips made during each time period. It is maintained as a part of the production system.

The PacFIN staff developed ad hoc retrievals to assist in a near shore groundfish study by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife(ODFW). Various statistics were generated in these reports pertaining to catch and effort on the near shore groundfish resource. Retrievals were also developed for the California market squid and wetfish fisheries.

The PacFIN office received multiple requests for retrieval routines that specified the inclusion of the NWR/LE permit identifier for each fish-ticket. As a result, a method was developed that produces an accurate and exact statement of each permit, or list-of-permits, that a particular vessel "holds" on any given day. This method was used to develop software that maintains the contents of the Oracle table TKPRMTLST, which is now a permanent part of the PacFIN central processing system. Table TKPRMTLST contains the relationship between each fish-ticket-vessel-day and the list-of-permits for that vessel-day. Many fish-tickets do not have a relation to a NWR/LE permit and as a result these fish-tickets are not included in this table.

The annual enhancements to the QSM subsystem were accomplished. The modifications for 2001 included: adding catch for yelloweye rockfish as a separate entry on the Best Estimate Report; removing yelloweye rockfish from the northern and southern shelf minor rockfish subgroups; and incorporating OY harvest levels for 2002 into the subsystem.