Costs of at-sea monitoring under government and private contracts in the groundfish fishery of the northeastern United States

An at-sea monitoring (ASM) program has been a required supplement to the Northeast Fisheries Observer Program, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), for monitoring catch in the groundfish fishery in the northeastern United States since the inception of comprehensive sector-based management in May 2010. For the initial years of this management program, the NMFS contracted with ASM providers and covered all costs for ASM-related services. Since March 2016, vessel owners who target groundfish collectively as groups called sectors have been required to cover the cost of the at-sea component of the ASM program through annual contracts with providers. Although subsequent developments have resulted in the NMFS reimbursing sectors for the majority of billed costs, the salient shift has been from government to private negotiation of ASM contracts. We investigated whether private contracting has reduced ASM costs by applying the terms of contracts to trip-level data from the groundfish fishery over the fishing years of 2013-2018. The payment regime of these contracts was compared with average costs per sea day from NMFS-negotiated contracts. We found that private contracts resulted in average cost reductions of 14% for the at-sea component of the ASM program. Cost reductions may, however, result in other complications, such as reduced observer pay and consequent issues of retention or data quality.