GGGI Small Grant (2021) - Teem Fish (Canada)
Photo credit: Teem Fish
Project Summary
To facilitate the reporting of lost and found crab gear in fishing grounds in British Columbia, Canada, Teem Fish is developing a near real-time gear tracking software application that can be added to the existing e-logbook in use by the Area A Dungeness Crab fleet. Teem Fish is developing the software and providing training for harvesters to test the software will ensure information is reported more accurately, consistently, and in a much more timely manner across the fleet, and in accordance with new lost gear reporting requirements from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada (DFO) and to reduce the amount of derelict gear in the water.
Ecotrust Canada and the Area A Crab Association operate an existing annual lost gear retrieval program in British Columbia. Each year, a commercial vessel operates for a limited number of days during the fishery’s softshell closure to collect lost gear from the fishing grounds. The development of this software application would allow for the recording of a greater amount of higher quality data that would then be available closer to real-time to maximize the effort at sea of the vessel dedicated to collecting lost gear.
In 2021, our software development partners at Pinpoint Earth, a Snap Group company, created a beta version of a lost gear reporting app. This app runs on the same tablets that are used as part of the fleet’s upgraded electronic monitoring system to reduce wheelhouse clutter and to make use of the app easier and more routine. The initial version of the app was designed as a means for harvesters to report lost gear electronically outside of the e-logbook implementation and roll-out. This was done to accommodate the timelines connected to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFOs) release of crab technical specifications for e-logbooks and the associated develop and approval process. After demonstrating this first version of the app to our in-house technicians and to the fleet, several user interface and overall ‘ease of use’ changes were sent back to the software development team.
Because lost gear reporting is now a federal requirement in Canada, we are collaborating with a certified Canadian e-logbook provider to accomplish two things. First, it will provide to the fleet e-logbook software that includes all lost gear reporting requirements and that sends the lost gear details to DFO and also to a third party-managed database for use by the annual gear retrieval program. Second, we are working with the fleet to determine if and how a stray or lost gear ‘encounter” form may be used to help quantify the number of traps that the fleet was keeping from becoming ghost gear each season.
Photo credit: Teem Fish