West Coast Limited Entry Groundfish Fixed Gear Economic Data Collection

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission

205 SE Spokane St, Suite 100

Portland, OR 97202

National Marine Fisheries Service

2725 Montlake Blvd E.

Seattle, WA 98112

Dear Mr. Charles Smith

We would like to invite you to participate in a cost earnings survey of commercial fishing vessel owners being conducted by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission in cooperation with the National Marine Fisheries Service. This survey targets vessel owners who hold a federal limited entry groundfish permit with a fixed gear endorsement. This survey updates a similar survey conducted during 2011. Our goal is to support fisheries management decision-making and to generate information that is required to help meet legal and regulatory requirements.

You can respond to this survey through an in-person interview, an on-line questionnaire, or a mail questionnaire. The enclosed questionnaire is provided at this time so that you know what information to have available during the interview. We will be contacting you by telephone one to three weeks after the date on this letter to discuss options for responding to this survey. Response options for vessel owners choosing to participate in this survey include scheduling an in-person interview, answering the questionnaire on-line, or completing the enclosed questionnaire and returning it in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope.

We appreciate the confidential nature of the data being collected by this survey. When publishing survey results, we will combine your responses with information provided by other participants, and report it in summary form so that responses for any individual vessel cannot be identified. If a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request is received for the data collected by this survey, we will seek to protect the confidentiality of the survey responses under Exemption 4 of the FOIA.

Because you and other vessel owners are the only ones that can provide this information, we encourage you to participate in this survey. By collecting information on individual vessels, we can better understand average fleet characteristics as well as diversity within the fleet. Fisheries managers will be better able to consider the effect of regulations.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Carl Lian Dave Colpo

National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission

carl.lian@noaa.gov dave.colpo@psmfc.org

(206)-302-2414 503-595-3100