Deployment performance review of the 2014 North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program.

This report contains the analyses and findings of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division’s Observer Science Committee on the efficiency and effectiveness of observer deployment in 2014. This review is performed as part of the annual review process implemented by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for the North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program. This report is intended to inform the Council, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and the public how well various aspects of the observer program are working, and it contains recommendations for improvement. Several performance metrics were evaluated. These included metrics that assess whether targeted levels of observer coverage were achieved, metrics that assess whether data from the observed fleet was representative of the unobserved fleet, and metrics that evaluated the probability of obtaining data throughout the fleet given the current sample rate (deployment rate). Observer deployments are representative if they are not spatially or temporally biased and if the characteristics of observed trips are similar to those from unobserved trips. Non-representative spatial or temporal deployments are evidence of a deployment effect and differences between the observed and unobserved fleet fishing characteristics are evidence of an observer effect. This evaluation of observer deployment was conducted at the stratum level as defined in the 2014 Annual Deployment Plan (ADP; released in December of 2013), since each stratum is defined by its own sampling unit (i.e., vessels or trips) and/or rate of sampling...