The Isle of Man’s fishing industry is taking part in a trial for a new data management system.
The Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture’s fisheries (DEFA) are testing a new fisheries data management system before it is adopted by fishery authorities throughout the UK.
The new system has updated software and operating systems and will hopefully improve the data management for a number of fisheries, including the Isle of Man’s well known King scallop and Queen scallop fisheries.
The government of the Isle of Man is once again improving the governance of its fisheries as part of its Future Fisheries strategy which is working toward developing a long term sustainable approach to its fisheries.
Some updates have also been made to the software on board the Manx fleet so fishermen will not see much of a change in how they transmit data regarding the catches landed on board the vessels.
Overall the new system will mean the logging and recording of catch data will be a much more simplified and reporting on specific species will be improved for the purpose of quota and total allowable catch allocations.