morro bay commercial groundfish buyers and offloaders - catch monitoring plans, west coast groundfish trawl ifq program 2010

Lisa Wise Consulting, Inc. is working with commercial fish buyers and offloading facilities in California to prepare Catch Monitoring Plans. Under the new IFQ groundfish trawl catch share program, which began in January 2011, all first receivers (buyers) of trawl-sector groundfish are required to hold a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) approved Catch Monitoring Plan. Catch Monitoring Plans are intended to ensure accurate catch accounting by federal catch monitors. Catch Monitoring Plans include descriptions of sorting spaces, sorting, weighing and containment methods, specifications of scales and their locations, delivery points and catch monitor’s observing area. LWC's work on Catch Monitoring Plans is aimed at setting a coastwide standard.