AKFIN recently collaborated with Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) and NMFS Alaska Region staff to report economic performance indicators for five North Pacific catch share programs: IFQ sablefish and halibut, the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization program, AFA pollock, Central Gulf of Alaska rockfish, and Amendment 80 non-pollock trawl catcher/processors. Results will be published later this year in a NMFS Office of Science and Technology report.
On behalf of US Coast Guard (USCG), the National Marine Fisheries Service has requested that AKFIN provide a list of all commercial fishing vessels that operate in federal waters off Alaska and the West Coast. This database list will also include vessel registration and fishery permit information along with the top three landing ports by vessel for 2009, 2010, and 2011. This data request is in response to the Coast Guard Authorization Act (P. L. 111-281) signed on October 15, 2010, which made several significant changes to Chapter 45 of Title 46, requiring, among other things, the mandatory safety inspection by the USCG of all Commercial Fishing Vessels operating beyond 3NM.
AKFIN has been working with social scientists from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) to develop a reporting dashboard in AKFIN Answers (Oracle Business Intelligence reporting tool) to support the Community Profiles for North Pacific Fisheries – Alaska, a NOAA technical memorandum scheduled for publication in early 2013. The AKFIN Answers reporting dashboard is supported by a specially designed database repository that contains hundreds of census, commercial, recreational, and subsistence metrics calculated by year and Alaskan community for 2000-2010.
More recently, these AKFIN Answers data exports were used to source an online mapping application that spatially represents commercial fishing activity by Alaskan community. These interactive maps show such statistics as landings by port, residency of state and federal permit holders, and vessel ownership to name a few.
The AFSC Alaska Community Profiles mapping application is available here
In addition to summarizing commercial data, AFSC programmers are working to include a subset of the subsistence and recreational statistics reported in the profiles, to be released at a later date.
The draft 2012 economic status report of the Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) Report for the North Pacific groundfish fisheries was recently prepared for the September Groundfish Plan Team meeting. The report presents information on various economic characteristics of the commercial groundfish fisheries in the BSAI and GOA regions, including harvest and processing activity; prohibited species catch; ex-vessel and first wholesale value; and fishing effort. The 2012 economic status report will be presented at December meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
AKFIN provided programming, database management, and project management support to the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Economics and Social Science Program in production of the report. Efforts to standardize ex-vessel pricing methods in the SAFE with other agency pricing methods are ongoing and being facilitated through AKFIN’s gross earnings workgroup.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and AKFIN collaborated on a project that profiled 16 different Alaska commercial fishing fleets and the Gulf of Alaska charter halibut fleet. The results of this project were published by NPFMC.
If you would like AKFIN to mail you a hard copy, contact Bob Ryznar at RRyznar@psmfc.org.
AKFIN Answers is scheduled to have a software upgrade on Friday, the 27th of July, 2012. The system will not be available to users during the upgrade process, which will start at 6:00 AM PST and end at approximately 9:00 AM PST.