Electronic Observer Reports

General Remarks

1. NAFO requires that observers shall monitor a vessel’s compliance with the relevant Conservation and Enforcement Measures, by

• recording and reporting fishing activities, verifying positions of the vessel,
• observing and estimating catches with a view of identifying catch composition, discards, by-catches and undersized fish
• recording and describe the gears, mesh sizes and attachments
• verifying entries made to the logbooks (species composition and quantities, live and processed weight, hail and VMS reports)

2. The observer shall also collect catch and effort data for each haul. The data shall include location (Latitude/longitude, depth, time of net on the bottom, catch composition and discards.

3. In 2000, the Scientific Council acting on the request of STACTIC designed the Observer Program Data System. The document describes the basic information required for assessing removals from stocks in the NAFO Regulatory. The data system was adopted by the Fisheries Commission.

4. In 2004, the Fisheries Commission adopted the STACTIC recommendation that the Contracting Parties make available detailed observer data to the Scientific Council by submitting them in an electronic format to the NAFO Secretariat.

5. In 2006, STACTIC adopted the proposal on the use of the electronic observer reports to replace the manual process of submission and entering the observers’ data in the database.

6. The Electronic Observer Report template comes in two separate spreadsheets – 1) on catch and effort data (NAFO Observer Catch Data Form), 2) on the length frequency data (NAFO Observer Length Frequency Form). The forms capture the required information that the observers should collect and record.

7. The Observer shall within 30 days following the completion of an assignment provide a report to the Contracting Party of the vessel and to the NAFO Secretariat.