PacFIN Brief for 2011

[Complete 2011 PSMFC Annual Report (pdf)]

The Pacific Fisheries Information Network (PacFIN) is the nation's first regional fisheries data network. Funded by a grant from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), PacFIN is a joint federal and state project focused on fisheries data collection and information management. PacFIN provides timely and accurate data to aid effective management of fisheries and fishery resources.

In 2011, the PacFIN Office updated the central database with regular datafeeds from eleven data sources and responded to at least 120 requests-for-information. Various selections of standard PacFIN reports were generated weekly or monthly and uploaded to the PSMFC and PacFIN website.

Following are highlights of PacFIN central office activities in 2011:

Internal System Upgrades

Internal system upgrades related to maintaining the success of current production applications were performed. These activities are supportive in nature and included database performance improvements, new production automation and retrieval scripts, new documentation and metadata.

Oracle Database Support

Contracted services were employed to provide database administration ( DBA) support, including: Oracle software maintenance services to apply critical patches and database upgrades when necessary; database monitoring to include regularly scheduled checks of logs; backup procedures; and statistics and consultation regarding performance, upgrades and database tools and functionality.

PacFIN User Support

PacFIN staff continued to work with clients to establish accounts, grant table access and assist with data retrievals from the PacFIN prowfish server environment.

West Coast Small Boat Registry database project

A new contract with the Washington Department of Licensing (WA-DOL) was implemented to take effect January 1, 2012. The new contract provides for a continuation of weekly updates of WA-DOL vessel registration data to PacFIN.

PacFIN Explorer tool upgrades

The web-based PacFIN Explorer tool, now in full production, continues to expand its user base with authorized users via password protected accounts on the non-public side of the website. PacFIN Explorer is a data warehouse-style multi-dimensional query tool that selects data directly from the PacFIN database. Using dimensions, measures and filters, clients can build custom queries quickly and easily. This query tool is continually being refined to add additional features as requested by the designated user community.

Reporting landings from Alaska areas to Washington ports

In response to a request from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG) and authorized by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), a web query form was created to extract commercial catch from Alaska areas that is landed in Washington ports. The web interface is password protected with access granted to a limited number of authorized individuals with signed non-disclosure forms on file with the PacFIN office.

Effort to attain accurate coast-wide reporting of federal permit identifiers on fish tickets

The absence of a command and control system for assigning catch to multiple federal permits assigned to a single vessel (stacked permits), each with varying trip limits, has proven challenging to accurate in-season reporting. In recognition of the importance of accurately estimating in-season landings attributed to the sablefish Daily Trip Limit (DTL) fishery, the Pacific Coast Fisheries Data Committee (PCFDC), meeting in late November of 2011, discussed the importance of accurate data capture and reporting of federal limited entry permit identifiers on fish tickets. To that end, a briefing was prepared for presentation to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) at its April of 2012 meeting. The briefing makes the case for full compliance and validation of existing state agency requirements to accurately report permit identifiers on fish tickets. Currently, an algorithm designed to estimate Primary and DTL landings is applied. The algorithm is an attempt to provide the best possible in-season estimate of the fixed gear sablefish distribution between primary season and DTL landings. However, since in the case of stacked permits, there is no way of knowing which limited entry permit the landings receipts are counted against, this algorithm uses logic agreed upon with the GMT to distribute landings across all stacked permits, taking into account differing tier limits on each permit and additional complications of in-season permit transfers. This was determined to be the best available method in the absence of accurate, validated reporting of permit assignments in the source fish ticket data.

QSM Software adaption to track IFQ fixed gear sablefish landings

The effort to isolate fixed gear sablefish landings attributed to the IFQ fishery was enhanced during this period with the application of in-season electronic fish ticket reporting data to identify IFQ fish tickets. This enhancement is a replacement for the previous application of fishing declarations data provided by NOAA/OLE. The OLE data, while useful, was never as complete as the electronic reporting data. The IFQ designation is used to determine when to exclude fixed gear sablefish landings (taken under a trawl permit and to be applied to an IFQ account) from the QSM Primary and DTL fixed gear sablefish landings reported in the QSM system. In the past, all sablefish landed on a trawl endorsed federal permit were tracked as trawl gear sablefish landings and excluded from the fixed gear Primary/DTL distribution in our QSM system. Now that IFQ account fishers with a limited entry trawl permit can 'take IFQ species using any legal groundfish non-trawl gear' under the gear switching provision of federal regulation 660.140 and can also fish outside of their IFQ account with non-trawl gear in the fixed gear Primary and DTL fisheries, we needed to determine when they are fishing against their IFQ with fixed gear and when they are not.

HMS DRIFT GILLNET GEAR CORRECTIONS

Highly Migratory Species (HMS) gear code corrections were presented at the PCFDC meeting and to the HMS management team for final approval. The gear correction algorithm in PacFIN was developed in consultation with the HMS management team. It was agreed that HMS landings with miscoded gear types that have been conclusively identified as Drift Gillnet (DGN) by the HMS team should be corrected in the PacFIN database. This was accomplished with the revision of existing gear correction software. It was also agreed that in order to retain the original gear assignment from the CDFG source data, a new column named 'gear_original' would be added to the FTL table. Both tasks were complete in 2011and resulting data improvements have been applied to the current stock assessment cycle.

Groundfish 'sectors' reporting application

New work in response to the Kit Dahl request for reporting by groundfish 'sectors' culminated in the addition of a new field in the PacFIN VDRFD table, which also allows for web based retrievals with the PacFIN Explorer tool. The field 'dahl_sector' in the vdrfd table contains numeric codes identifying groundfish 'sectors.' These sectors are meant to identify landings according to fishery components, or sectors, used in management. Sectors are defined through a combination of species composition of landings, gear type, and permit status, among other factors. It should be noted that the results of this coding may differ from other categorizations of landings, such as that developed by the West Coast Groundfish Observer Program in their total mortality reports, because of differences in the underlying data structure (e.g., use of fish ticket data versus vessel summary data) and the procedures used to code the data. The dahl_sector codes are assigned at the vessel-day-gear level and species composition criteria used in sector coding are calculated on a vessel-day-gear basis (agid+drvid+tdate+grgroup).

NOAA/FIS/FOSS summary table addition

A new table to support the FIS Fisheries One Stop Shop (FOSS) project was completed during this period. The table includes annual catch and value summaries by species for on-shore and at-sea West Coast landings. A database link was established with the FOSS database server to allow for direct access to this table.

New procedure manual developed

A comprehensive revision of the PacFIN procedure manual was initiated during this period. The effort will update documentation of daily, weekly, monthly and annual procedures.

New staff hire

Karasi McLean joined the PacFIN central office staff in October, filling the vacant Data Management Specialist position. She attended a training course in Oracle 11g fundamentals, October 31 to November 3.

Meetings and Seminars

The Annual Pacific Coast Fisheries Data Committee (PCFDC) meeting was held November 29 to 30 in Portland, OR. PacFIN staff attended and presented.