Fraser River Sockeye Fisheries and Fisheries Management - Cohen ...

Appendix CFirst Nation catch monitoring programs.Table C-1 provides a list of the First Nation Groups that conduct catch monitoringprograms in each fishing area and summary information related to each fishery and catchmonitoring program. Most of information in this table was obtained from a DFO reporton the methods used to estimate the catch of Fraser sockeye in 2004 entitled “CatchMonitoring – Southern B.C. Fisheries” (Ryall and Ionson 2005), submitted to the 2004Southern Salmon Fishery Post-Season Review Committee chaired by the HonourableBryan Williams. The details are provided under the following columns headings:First Nations = number of First Nations monitored by each group,Fishery Location = the geographic location of each sockeye fishery defined interms of Pacific Fisheries Management Areas (PFMA);Relative Effort = the average number of permits issued to fishers or number offishers active during a typical sockeye fishing season;Relative Catch = the rounded estimate of the 2004 sockeye catch for each fishery;Fishing Gear = types of fishing gear used to harvest sockeye;Catch Reporting = the frequency of reporting catch estimates to DFO;Catch Monitoring System = a brief summary of the methods used to obtain catchmonitoring data from each fishery;Validation = the degree to which catch estimates are validated and any suspectedbiases associated with the catch estimates;Data Quality = qualitative ratings for accuracy, precision and reliability of thedata used to generate the catch estimates for the majority of the sockeye harvested(i.e., if seines catch estimates are “Good” and seines catch the majority of thesockeye, the rating will be “Good”);Accuracy = a qualitative rating of the degree managers can be confident that thereported catch reflects the actual harvest (fair = likely biased low in some or mostyears; good = any bias is likely to be small; very good = complete enumeration ofthe catch);Precision = generally unknown for most First Nation fisheries (estimates ofprecision are provided where available and where catch estimates are a completecount, the precision is very high); andReliability = a qualitative rating of the degree managers can rely on the catchestimates for in-season and post-season assessments. These ratings are similar tothe ratings for accuracy, except biased estimates that received a “fair” rating forC-1