The Otoliths Collected by the Coastal RF Vessels
On the Coastal RF vessels, the fishers also collect otoliths and follow the IMR’s procedures as described in the handbooks’ guidelines in order to ensure their traceability. However, due to a number of practical issues, the process differs from what goes on in the Offshore RF vessels.
The coastal vessels typically have a crew of two who take care of all the tasks that have to be done in order to fish: getting to the location, deciding where and when to set the gear and how, taking up the gear and taking care of the catch and by-catch, then making the gear ready for the sea again and finding new locations. This is related to the knowledge dimensions described by Maurstad (2004),who divides their knowledge into a vertical and a horizontal dimension: how to travel to the field, where to find fish as well as how and when to catch fish. After the fishing is done, they have to travel to a landing site and sell their catch. In between all this, they must cook, make coffee and, importantly, collect data for the RF. So, while the Offshore RF fishers operate within a large organization with quite specialized tasks, the Coastal RF fisher is truly a ‘Jack of all trades’ (Maurstad 2004).
Space is an issue with regard to data collection on the Coastal RF vessels. The vessel’s area is used effectively, making room for all the machines and gear the fishers need to fish and store their catch. This leaves little room for other artefacts such as weights and scales.
Also, the electronic devices from IMR need protection from the wind and waves in order to be accurate. The Coastal RF vessels cannot offer this environment outside since there is little protection. Hence, most of the Coastal RF vessels have to weigh and measure each fish and
then subsequently register this manually in the paper version of the forms30. This is actually how the IMR scientists registered data before they had access to the FishMeter. It is an extremely time-consuming procedure (Øvredal and Totland 2002).
To do the sampling, the Coastal RF have their own instructions. The procedures for collecting cod otoliths are described in the instructions fishers get from the IMR:
In stations where up to 50 fish are measured, otoliths are taken from 20 of these fish. (The 20 fishes should be randomly chosen from the 50 fish measured!). Mark the otolith bags (the small brown envelopes) from 1 to 20, and write down the length, weight and the fish gender (♀ for female fish and ♂ for male fish). Place the otoliths in the otolith bag (one bag for each fish). When you have done this, gather the bags and mark the pile with the name of the vessel, the species and date. (IMR 2009b: my translation).
In order to follow the instructions, each vessel gets paper versions of the forms, plastic measuring devices, special otolith envelopes, tweezers and a knife, to mention some of the equipment. In comparison with the Offshore RF, the lack of an electronic FishMeter is the most important difference with regard to data collection. Accordingly, the Coastal RF fishers have to spend a lot of time filling in the paper forms that make the otoliths traceable.
Below, I will describe how the Coastal RF vessels are organized to cope with these instructions.
The Coastal RF Vessels: Collecting Otoliths and Filling in Forms
The Coastal RF vessel I visited in Finnmark is a typical Coastal RF vessel with regard to space and organization on board. As described earlier, Huse was there to find out why they do not deliver data to the IMR. However, the fishing was bad, and the only catch during this trip was one big halibut and an enormous amount of red king crab as by-catch in the gill nets as well as in the tramps. This meant that there was no fish to sample from, hence I could not observe how the sampling is done, and Huse could not show them how to do it properly either. Between the fishing locations, Huse spoke with the skipper, Per, and his crew member, Ola. She made suggestions with regard to how they can organize their work and the vessel in
30 The Coastal RF fishers are currently (from approximately 2009) trained in using the computer program Reg-Fisk themselves. However, during my fieldwork, most of the fishers filled in the schedules by hand, and just one or two of them had started ‘playing’ with the program.
order to integrate the collection of data for the RF in between their fishing activities.
Importantly, they have to separate the fish that is sampled from the normal catch according to IMR’s definition of sampling. This is sometimes difficult because of the
practical conditions on board these smaller vessels and all the other tasks that have to be done during a fishing operation. How this can be organized onboard is described in the field notes below.
In light of this, it is more practical for the RF fishers onboard this vessel to do the sampling – remove the otoliths and weigh and measure the fish – on land. This is the case for many of the Coastal RF vessels, according to information from fishers during the annual meetings. This complicates the sampling since it is important to keep these fish separated from the others until all the necessary information is registered in the forms. In addition, the landing site is far from this vessel’s home port, complicating the process further. When we arrived at the
landing site late at night in November 2007, both fishers where cold and tired after two long days at sea. When there are numerous boats that want to deliver their catches, there is little time for taking care of this type of task at the landing sites.
While the Coastal RF vessel in Finnmark had some challenges with the sampling, the other Coastal RF fisher I visited in Nordland delivers data on a regular basis. The skipper, Stig, explains to me what type of work they do for the RF:
A Coastal RF vessel in Finnmark, 13 November 2007
Huse proposes that when the fish comes onboard the boat they take out a part of the catch, and then weigh it, throw it on the plastic device for measuring and mark the plastic with a knife, take the otholiths and then throw the fish, like a cod, back in the pile.
Huse demonstrates with imaginary fish while she marks the measures on the plastic board and counts what they would earn: ‘10 Krones, 20 Krones, 30 Krones, 40 Krones’…
Per interrupts her: ‘But we don't have a scale here, so we have to do it on land before we land [deliver] the fish’.
The workload does not bother Stig, and according to him, it is unproblematic to do the sampling.
The two Coastal RF vessels visited are comparable with each other. They have the same equipment in order to take the samples for the RF, and the boats’ organization seems very similar. However, Stig has a large boathouse on land, where he berths his vessel. Here, he has a lot of space for taking care of his gear and the catch. Inside, he has manual scales and a measuring device which he uses for data sampling. After fishing, he brings the fish he is sampling here, and removes the otolith, measures and weighs the fish and fills this in on the paper forms. Then, he delivers the catch at the landing site which is nearby.