SciFish Evaluation

SciFish is a citizen science mobile application, powered by ACCSP, that encourages and facilitates the collection and sharing of information about saltwater fish along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. SciFish is an umbrella application that hosts multiple fisheries citizen science projects. The projects currently available are: SAFMC Release Project - The SAFMC Release project works with commercial, for-hire, and private recreational fishermen in the South Atlantic US (NC, SC, GA, and east FL) to collect information on released shallow water grouper. It was developed in collaboration with fishermen, scientists, data and fishery managers, and technology experts through the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Citizen Science Program. Information collected will help scientists and managers learn more about the size of released fish and gather information to help inform discard mortality estimates. Learn more: https://safmc.net/cit-sci/safmcrelease/. Catch U Later Project - The NCDMF’s Catch U Later project works with North Carolina’s for-hire and private recreational angling community to collect information about their flounder catches. The purpose of Catch U Later is to determine length distribution of discarded flounder and evaluate angler expertise in the identification of flounder species. Information collected will provide species specific discard length data for stock assessments and Fishery Management Plans. The application will also help researchers evaluate self-reported discard data from dockside interviews and help educate the angling public on flounder identification.