A cost evaluation of techniques designed to assess Canadian lobster fishing effort

Little information is available on either the pattern of distribution of lobster fishing effort or lobster buoy density in eastern Canadian waters. Logbook records for individual lobster fishermen were deemed too costly; consequently, workers have recently developed three techniques to attain these types of data. Two of the techniques involve remote sensing from airplanes; one of these employs color photography (ACP), the other visual scanning (AVS). The other technique involves individual fishermen interviews (IFI). Each technique was employed and the costs in both monies and manpower are presented here. The ACP technique was the most costly; monetary and manpower costs were $109.10 Canadian km −2 and 5.8 km 2 per survey hour. These values for the AVS and IFI techniques, respectively, were $10.40 km −2 and 7.0 km 2 per survey hour, and $2.68 km −2 and 11.23 km 2 per survey hour. The merits and drawbacks of each technique are discussed.