Rednet Study

In 2009, A.I.S. Inc. (AIS) was invited to participate in a cooperative research project to devise strategies to sustainably harvest the redfish resource in the Gulf of Maine through a network approach. This included over 25 collaborators representing the fishing industry, net builders, state and federal agencies, universities, and private companies. Throughout the project, AIS served as a technical advisor to the group in the area of at sea data collection.

AIS provided sea going biologists during the baseline catch and bycatch evaluation phase of the study. This phase consisted of deployment aboard five commercial fishing vessels participating in the study. The biologists were responsible for documenting fishing effort (i.e. position, trawl time, depth, etc.), gear characteristics, environmental data, and complete catch information. The catch information included actual weights for all species when possible. Length frequencies were obtained from both retained and discarded commercially important species. The biologists completed a total of 85 hauls during 27 days over a ten month period. The data were delivered, catch information was summarized and sent to the network members. Data forms were shared with the Project Leaders and digital images were made available to the network.