The National Marine Fisheries Service uses this information for the purposes of both in-season management and to establish fishing quotas for future seasons. G athering, sorting, and weighing a sample at sea is a physically demanding job, and recording the data gathered requires a biologist's attention to detail. Nearly all of our observers are assigned to vessels, though at any one time we do have one or two observers stationed in shore-based or floating processing plants in Alaska.
Observers live on their boats, often in crowded and spartan conditions.
An observer may spend an entire field deployment aboard a single vessel, though he or she is more likely to spend time working on several different vessels. Whether they attend training in Seattle or Anchorage, observers are responsible only for travel costs to and from Seattle from their homes. AOI is responsible for travel costs to and from Alaska from Seattle. Observers can expect to be attached to one vessel or another for the vast majority of any field deployment, but while they are deployed to Alaska they are paid salary whether or not they are on a vessel. Observers receive incremental salary increases depending on the amount of time they have spent in the field.