Rollie Barnaby
Develop a collaboration between commercial fishermen, private marine industries, oceanographers, and coastal resources managers for the collection, real time telemetry, analysis, assimilation, and use of environmental and fisheries data from coastal regions off the northeast US.
Task 1a. Hold Local and Regional Workshops to Identify User Needs
This important task has been the primary focus of UNH Sea Grant Extension. PIs Cliff Goudey from MIT Sea Grant, Joe Novello from Alphatron, and Craig Pendleton a fisherman from Portland, ME, have worked on this task with Rollie Barnaby, UNH's Extension Educator.
It was decided early in the process that formal workshops were not going to get the necessary information on fishermen's needs. The summer months are tough times to get commercial fishermen at a meeting and fishermen in general are feeling overwhelmed by meetings and public hearings because of some extemely contentious management regulations being proposed.
The outreach people were very successful meeting fishermen "on their turf," meeting with them individually and in small groups informally on the docks, and at regularly scheduled fishermen's meetings.
It was decided that to reach as many fishermen as possible a questionnaire would be helpful. We asked fishermen's leaders to distribute the questionnaires with a self-addressed envelop to Rollie Barnaby attached. The response has been excellent. We have received 25 questionnaires from the Gloucester and New Bedford areas. The questionnaire is being distributed in the Portland area at this time. We are concentrating on the large boat or "trip boat" ports because those are the people that fish the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.
A copy of the questionnaire is enclosed. The results will be tabulated this winter by WHOI.
Outreach activities:
July 22, 1998 - Rollie Barnaby, Cliff Goudey, Craig Pendleton, and Joe Novello visited with 12 fishermen in Gloucester, MA individually and in small groups to talk about the project and ask them about their fisheries, oceanographic, and weather data needs. We were also curious about their computer literacy.
That same day we met with the Manager of the Gloucester Fish Auction and told
him about the NOPP project. He enthusiastically agreed to be part of the project.
July 2 - Rollie and Craig made a presentation to the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance Board of Directors on NOPP.
August 19 and 20 - Rollie and Craig were in New Bedford, MA talking with fishermen and three fishermen's leaders, Jim Kendall, Rodney Avila, and Howard Nickerson. Each of these people took some questionnaires and talked about their fishermen. There was some discussion about using LENA on scallopers.
Craig Pendletonmade a presentation at the Gloucester Fishermen's Forum on fishermen partnering with scientists. His role in NOPP was part of that presentation.
October 22 - Rollie Barnaby made a NOPP presentation to the Portland Fish Exchange Board of Directors.
What we have found out so far is that the idea of knowing water temperature on the bottom was very exciting to all the fishermen interviewed. Sending oceanographic and weather information to WHOI and getting that information back was also appealing. Some fishermen were very nervous about sending fisheries information. They wanted to know who would get it and what were they planning to do with it. Most did not want to send it to the "government."