Planning annual allocation of fisheries surveillance effort

Abstract

Fishery surveillance on both of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada costs the Canadian taxpayer several millions of dollars annually. Few of these dollars are recovered through fines from successfully prosecuted cases involving fishery violations. Consequently, federal fishery surveillance programs are not self-supporting—they are subsidized. In order to reduce the cost of the program to the Canadian taxpayer, it is necessary to implement a cost-effective program which maximizes the deterrent effect of surveillance effort. In this paper we present a tactical linear programming for effectively allocating annual surveillance effort to monitor and control fishing activity, and to enforce fishery regulations in accordance with resource management plans and objectives for the offshore fishery. In particular, we focus on the Atlantic fishery. The tactical model determines on an annual basis, for each of the surveillance units, the amount of effort allocated to each fishery/fishing zone in each time period while maximizing effectiveness. Once the effort allocations are made, operational tasks which involve scheduling surveillance/patrol units on a short-term basis in accordance with the annual plan and current priorities must be completed. We demonstrate the potential use of the planning model.