Fishing by Email

Stephen Kocsis
NMFS Juneau, AK

This paper will describe the methodology for keeping track of the Alaska region fish harvest through Email. The system uses a combination of Visual Basic, Perl, Oracle PL/SQL, Windows and UNIX. It has been operating since 1998 and is generalized to accept a family of data types. Each client shoreside processor or vessel is supplied with Windows Visual Basic software with forms to enter the catch. It is stored in a local database. When the data entry is finished an ASCII file, with the harvest information, is Emailed to a Unix server in Juneau. The data is contained as an attachment with the extension defining the type of data.

A Perl program parses the Email and loads the harvest data into temporary database tables. The data is checked for errors there and if any are found the bad data is flagged. Records that pass validation are loaded into a production database. The data is used for fisheries management decisions, analysis and to post current harvests on the Alaska region Web page.

After the data has been inspected and loaded into the database an Email acknowledgement is sent back to each client. It lists errors with the intention that the client will send corrections with the next transmission. The client may also send deletions and/or updates to previously transmitted files. This is automatically handled by the system.

The system was designed to easily allow the addition of new data types as demands change. Currently the software is supplied free to all clients.

BIO -Stephen Kocsis 1984-1997 DOD/Navy San Diego, CA Signal Processing 1998-2001 NOAA/NMFS Juneau, AK Sustainable Fisheries

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