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A fisheries observer is an independent specialist who serves on board commercial fishing vessels, or in fish processing plants and other platforms, and is employed by a fisheries observer program, either directly by a government agency or by a third party contractor. Observers spend anywhere from 1 day to 3 months out at sea before returning to be “debriefed”. A debriefing consists of reviewing any unusual occurrences or observations, violations observed, and any safety problems or other hardships they endured during the trip. These data are then integrated into the regional agency’s database used to monitor fish quotas.
Observers are usually the only independent data collection source for some types of at-sea information, such as bycatch, catch composition, and gear configuration data. Independent data collection in this context refers to data that is not potentially biased by the fishermen. Creel surveys, trip reports, and other data obtained directly from fishermen can have some dependent bias associated with it. Fisheries-dependent information is critical for the responsible management and conservation of living marine resources, and many worldwide marine resource management regimes utilize fisheries observers for the collection of this data.
The integrity of a fisheries observer program is a function of the conduct, morale, and performance of its employees. Moreover, the stature and stability of a program has direct bearing on the quality of its data products and on the level of confidence that scientists, managers, and policy makers are able to ascribe to the use of this data.