Monitoring of remote small vessel fisheries in Australia is often difficult and always costly. Travel costs, observer wages, and operational inefficiencies and restrictions of small vessels in accommodating on-board observers are all factors which act to restrict monitoring coverage while still incurring a relatively high cost to industry. With the a growing need for accurate catch and effort data and the high costs and operational restrictions of using human observers there is a subsequent need to find a cost-effective alternative that will not only improve coverage levels but also reduce costs.

The Nickol Bay Professional Fishermans Association, acting on behalf of the operators in the Western Australian Interim Managed Pilbara Trawl Fishery (PTF) currently contracts Pelagicus Pty Ltd to provide on-board fisheries observers, but given the remoteness of the fishery and the small number of vessels operating, financial restrictions mean that only a portion of the fleet’s fishing activity can be monitored. In response to this problem the PTF and Pelagicus Pty Ltd will be undertaking a pilot project in October 2005 to test the feasibility of using an Electronic Observer System (EOS), incorporating high resolution digital video cameras to collect and collate a range of fisheries independent catch and effort data. If the EOS is deemed a feasible alternative in terms of fisheries data collection capabilities suitable for fisheries monitoring purposes there will be a strong need to ascertain the relative costs-benefits of implementing and operating this form of monitoring in comparison to the use of on-board human observers.