An Evaluation of Methods Used to Predict Commercial Fishing Effort in Alaska

Every year, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Fishery Monitoring and Analysis Division and the Alaska Regional Office’s Sustainable Fisheries Division produce an Annual Deployment Plan (ADP) that documents how the National Marine Fisheries Service plans to deploy observers into the partial coverage fishing fleet during the coming year. One important element of the ADP is a prediction of how much fishing effort will be carried out by the partial coverage fleet in the coming year. An accurate prediction of effort is necessary if the North Pacific Observer Program is to deploy observers at rates that keep the program within an acceptable range of its available budget, and this prediction needs to be completed prior to the end of the previous year. 2019 NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) Submitted https://doi.org/10.25923/gnyj-f281 Public Domain 1863