What is it?

HMS HUB: The vesl initiative

Funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and their Electronic Monitoring and Reporting Grant Program, The Billfish Foundation (TBF) has partnered with BFD, LLC to enhance Billfish conservation efforts by integrating the Tag & Release Program’s requirements into VESL, making it easier for more members of the fishing community to contribute valuable data through electronic logbooks (ELBs). Essentially, BFD developed a unified reporting form that satisfies the Highly Migratory Species (HMS) recreational reporting requirements and TBF’s billfish tagging program. Now, with a simple submission, users on the commercial and charter side of fisheries have the option to submit their data to TBF in support of billfish conservation, helping to expand the use of ELBs and reduce the reporting burden on fishers.

For more specific information on fisheries electronic logbooks, the development of the integrated form, or the project overview, click ‘Learn More’ below for more information or check out our animation video!

VESL Overview

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Why Does it Matter?

High-quality data is crucial for managing fishery stocks, but fishers often face a growing number of regulatory reporting requirements, often diminishing the desire to participate in collaborative research and science that is important to them and their industries. By integrating TBF’s optional data collection efforts into the already required electronic forms, this project aims to reduce the burden on fishers, improve data collection quality, and ultimately support better fishery management and conservation efforts for billfish.

In general, more than 90% of the data received by TBF comes from the recreational sport fishing community. TBF has worked for more than 35 years to support and conduct research that assesses billfish stocks, identifies billfish threats, and quantifies socio economic contributions of billfish. TBF’s Tag & Release Program is popular within the recreational community, hosting a data sampling size of more than 290,000 data reports and collecting information related to species, location, species, fish dimensions, gear type, hook type, fish conditions, and even crew and boat details. These records have been instrumental in allowing TBF to gain a better understanding of billfish populations and movements, while simultaneously supporting both the anglers and captains of the industry and billfish in general. By adding charter boat billfish data, TBF is able to grasp an even further understanding of billfish, essentially tapping into a market of data collection yet to be obtained.

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Who are we?

BFD is a fisheries technology company focused on simplifying the reporting process for the fishing industry. They believe the sustainable management of fisheries depends on the quality of the data collected. To address this, they developed VESL, a fisheries data infrastructure designed to accommodate diverse data collection needs while establishing robust data validations. This ensures the best available data is provided to managers, enabling them to make informed and balanced decisions that support both the ecological and economic health of fisheries.

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What We've Accomplished?

BFD has developed an integrated reporting form within their application, VESL, that combines HMS reporting requirements with TBF’s billfish tagging program. This allows permitted anglers to easily report both mandatory data and optional billfish conservation data in one form. The integration streamlines the process and enhances data accuracy, ensuring all data is sent to the appropriate agencies while allowing the reporters to maintain control over their data.
With this innovative feature, the complexities associated with reporting become minimal, enabling those passionate about fisheries conservation to contribute effortlessly.

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Looking Ahead

This project lays the groundwork for expanding the integrated reporting system to other sectors, including commercial fishers and charter-for-hire vessels. As more agencies adopt ELBs, VESL can incorporate new research programs and citizen science initiatives, allowing for more efficient data collection across diverse fisheries and contributing to better management and conservation. This partnership is a great example of how technology and collaboration can streamline data collection processes, benefiting both fishers and conservation efforts. It demonstrates the potential for expanding this model to future collaborative research projects, including shark and dolphin depredation studies, discard mortality studies, physical oceanography data collection, and academic research projects, among others.

Overall, the collaboration between these two organizations paves the way for further collaborations, helping to create a unified data collection effort that ultimately benefits the marine resources and those that depend on them.

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How Can you Help?

Fishers can participate in the integrated reporting system by using VESL. By opting into the TBF billfish tagging program, you can contribute valuable data that supports billfish conservation efforts. Fishers can also advocate for the adoption of integrated reporting systems to help reduce the reporting burden and improve data sharing across fisheries management and research programs.

Sharing this information with those within the industry is also incredibly valuable. Any opportunity to provide more people with an understanding of our goals and the project at hand will lead to increased participation overall.

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Meet The Team

Brett Pierce

Director of Strategy at BFD, LLC

He focuses on science and policy strategy and has experience working in the Fishery Statistics Division at NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

Andrew Petersen

CEO of BFD LLC

Dedicated to advancing digital solutions for the fisheries industry. Andrew leads the company with a focus on simplifying the reporting process for stakeholders and enhancing data collection for better fishery management and conservation

TJ Morrell

Science & Education Specialist at TBF

Focuses on data analysis, education outreach, and program integration, aiming to improve data collection efforts and advance TBF strategies. Previous work includes NOAA’s observer and commercial logbook programs.