Learning From the Study Fleet: Maintenance of a Large-Scale Reference Fleet for Northeast US Fisheries

Logbook data from commercial fisheries are a vital component in the machinery of management, including tracking the volume of catches and allocating catch spatially. At the same time, logbooks can provide a unique window into the ecological and sociological conditions in marine fisheries, where fishermen interact with marine species and environments frequently and broadly. Traditional logbooks, however, often are not sufficiently standardized (when personal logs), or lack the detail (when regulatory documents) required to adequately understand fisheries ecosystems. The Study Fleet program, operated by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center's Cooperative Research Branch, was developed to address these shortfalls by engaging members of the fishing industry in collecting high-resolution catch, effort, and environmental data using electronic logbooks. Since its inception, the Study Fleet has expanded from a small project focused on collecting detailed catch information from the New England multispecies groundfish fishery to a program with a wider scope encompassing a variety of fisheries, gears, and environmental parameters from North Carolina to Maine U.S. Over the years, a number of lessons have been learned about recruiting and supporting industry partners, managing the data, evolving technical specifications, and the challenges associated with analyzing and applying self-reported fisheries data. Here we describe the current state of the program and provide summaries of the Study Fleet program operations and outcomes from 2007-2020, with an eye towards successes, challenges, and applicability of the approach in other regions. We suggest other reference fleet programs, as well as other developing fishery dependent data collections (e.g., electronic monitoring programs), develop detailed roadmaps for each data collection to keep participants engaged as collaborators, target specific fisheries to keep resources from being stretched too thin, and partner with data users early. Additionally, we suggest programs invest in the long-term participation of individual fishermen, carefully weigh the pros and cons of involvement in regulatory reporting, and plan data products and applications well in advance to ensure that the sampling scheme and granularity of the data meet the needs of stock assessment, ecosystem, and oceanographic scientists.