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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2015
Quinault boats test new crab pot monitors
Expense is a drawback, but electronic tags would curb Wild West practices on the ocean
By KATIE WILSON
EO Media Group
OLYMPIC PENINSULA, Wash.
— Many eyes have been on the
Quinault Indian Nation as it tests
technology that could help dramat-
ically improve rule enforcement in
Washington’s $62 million commer-
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been using an electronic crab pot
monitoring system to track gear use.
This entails placing quarter-coin-
sized radio frequency tags in their
crab pot buoys over the summer and
since November. As the pots were
pulled aboard, they scanned the
buoys in front of a sensor: “Basically
like you’re scanning groceries at the
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Wilson, who was one of the three
participants in the pilot program.
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cation number and the GPS location
to a computer.
With every pot registered to only
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this will be a simple way to track
boat activity and gear use.
“It would solve some pretty sig-
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Wildlife.
As things stand, both tribal and
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men looking to cheat the system and
steal gear and crab can, for the most
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work at night and “guys that have
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er guys’ gear,” Ayres said. “Unless
someone is right there in the middle
of the night and knows what’s going
on, it’s almost impossible for us to
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know we can’t do anything about it,
they don’t necessarily report (inci-
dents) to us.”
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hear about stolen gear from time to
time, but the traps are in the ocean
and the ocean is never still. Besides,
whales tangle in pots, debris snags
them, storms move them.
The Quinault Indian Nation is
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Canada to process the data it collect-
ed. The pilot program ended in Janu-
Deborah L. Preston photo
The Quinault Indian Nation on the Olympic Peninsula is experiment-
ing with a new electronic monitoring system to keep track of the tribe’s
significant share of Washington state’s Dungeness crab industry.
Wilson said regarding the expense
per boat.
Schumacker didn’t have a cost
estimate yet, but said it would have
to be well under $10,000 to be af-
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has yet to implement similar mon-
itoring though it has examined the
possibility before. With that kind of
price tag, it’s a hard sell, Ayres said.
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would primarily go to those in the
industry, but since they would also
have to bear the bulk of the cost,
the technology won’t become main-
Deborah L. Preston photo
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Pete Wilson, Quinault Indian Nation fisherman, demonstrates how
it.
crab pots are scanned using a sensor embedded in the pot float.
Still, Ayres said, “it’s something
Deborah L. Preston photo
that’s slowly becoming more com-
Alan Sarich, a fisheries biologist mon in other situations in other
DU\1R¿QDOUHSRUWRUQXPEHUVKDYH in the states, Schumacker said.
been made public yet though Joe
“I don’t think it’s all the way for the Quinault Indian Nation, states.”
In theory, as it gains traction else-
Schumacker, QIN marine scientist, there,” Wilson said about the equip- holds up the sensor that is em-
expects a report in March.
PHQW LQ D SKRQH LQWHUYLHZ )HE bedded in the crab floats. The where and becomes standard: “It
sensor system was a demonstra- gets better and slowly gets cheaper.”
“If it works well, we’re hoping But he thinks it’s close.
But he thinks the department will
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“I’d say 90 percent of our guys tion project this year and QIN will
future and would love to see it used are probably going to want this im- decide whether to implement the see more support as younger, more
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E\WKHQRQWULEDO¿VKHUPHQDVZHOO´ plemented,” he said. “There are one system in the future.
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Schumacker said in an article in the or two who’d probably prefer that
don’t have answering machines and,
Winter 2014/15 Northwest Indian it would not, for their own personal
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Fisheries Commission News.
reasons.”
In an phone interview, he said
But he and the others don’t have wading through massive amounts of address,” he said.
data, something they don’t have the
Even now, they are only just
it is something he has been push- anything to hide.
ing for the last decade. It is some-
“I think it can only help,” he said. staff for, Ayres said. And there is a beginning to look at requiring an
electronic log book instead of pa-
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thing fisheries in British Colum-
Cost downside
“If it wasn’t slightly over $10,000, per log books fishermen currently
bia have utilized and recently the
)RU ¿VKHU\ PDQDJHUV OLNH it would certainly eat up most of it,” maintain.
idea seems to be gaining traction
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