Vol. 3, No. 2 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Spring 1999
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Swells, salt air, and satellites"Our goal is to empower the commercial fishing community with knowledge, data, new tools, and direct connection to the academic research community," said University of New Hampshire (UNH) Sea Grant Director Ann Bucklin, describing the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), coordinated by UNH Sea Grant. The program, which includes academic, private sector, and fishing industry partners, began when Joe Novello, Vice President of a manufacturing company and a member of a Gloucester, Massachusetts fishing family, offered to develop a device to assist fishermen by reading water temperature near the ocean floor. Sea Grant expanded that idea to include collection of additional information that could be bounced to shore via satellite for other entities to use. According to Bucklin, "With autonomous NOPP sensor systems, fishermen would be collecting weather and ocean data as they fish, and relaying these data directly to shore-based centers, including the National Weather Service prediction centers." The meteorological, hydrographic, and satellite instrumentation now being developed will be installed on board two fishing vessels and tested at sea this fall and winter. Research grants and government programs will pay for the equipment and its installation, as well as compensate fishermen for the use of their vessels. One vessel is in Gloucester. The other is owned by Craig Pendleton, Executive Director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, based in Saco, Maine. Pendleton is helping to design the NOPP software that fishermen will use at sea. He noted that confidential E-mail links will enable communication with fish markets and could also be used to report sightings of endangered whales. |
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