FIRST Project
Fishing Industry and Research Scientists Together 
Purpose of the First Project
The FIRST Project is an Oregon State University (OSU) thesis project in conjunction with Oregon seafood processing plants, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife (ODF&W).  The study will explore the feasibility of implementing a more comprehensive cooperative sampling program for Pacific west coast groundfish in the future with the goal of improving the precision and accuracy of estimates derived from the samples.  The data collected will not result in short-term increases or decreases in the trip limits of allowable harvests.  However, it will help researches to decide what types of cooperative studies will aid in the collection of data, which, it turn, will provide long-term production of our valuable fish stocks.

Data Needs and Expected Benefits
Fishery dependent data -- such as length distributions, sex ratios, maturity schedules and species composition of landed catches -- are necessary for stock assessments.  These data are currently collected by state port biologists using a sampling design that randomly selects samples from a small percentage of a very large target population.  For example, in 1997 ODF&W Port Biologists sampled 3.17% of landed yellowtail rockfish.  There are two potential shortcomings with current sampling that will be addressed in the study.  First, samples are only collected from a small portion of the population.  Increasing sampling size will improve the precision of the estimates of fishing dependent data, provided the sampling is done properly.  Second, samples are rarely collected from boats that come into port during the evenings and on the weekends -- thus a substantial number of catches do not get sampled and bias in the estimate is a potential problem.  To examine the precision and accuracy of fishery dependent data from the current port sampling, we need to increase the sample size and expand data collection times into the evenings and weekends.  This must also be accomplished in an economically reasonable manner -- not an insignificant challenge.  Working cooperatively with the seafood processing plants is essential to meet these challenges.

Methods
The FIRST project is a cooperative study utilizing seafood processing plant workers to collect fishery data.  The seafood processing plant workers will be trained by the project coordinator to randomly sample fish and measure their lengths.  The FIRST project will be conducted in three Oregon ports: Coos Bay, Newport and Astoria.  Coos Bay and Astoria will have 2 plants participating in the project and Newport will have one.  Plant workers will measure fish lengths of specific species.  Data collected by the plant workers will be compared to data collected by ODF&W Port Biologist during their usual monitoring.  The FIRST Project coordinator will also collect length samples to augment ODF&W samples and to ensure overall quality.

Questions?  Contact info@FIRST.Project 
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