Blog.HaulingGear.com Archive (8-2008 to 3-2014)

JUNE 1, 2010 Early Adopters Add Shopping-Cart Apps to Fan Pages to Sell Items, Services By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN After learning how to market themselves through tweets and status updates, some small companies are taking the next step: selling directly to consumers via social-networking sites. Merchants on Facebook and MySpace are adding e-commerce stores to their fan pages, hoping users will scan lists of for-sale items and services—such as floral bouquets, hand-crafted jewelry and spa treatments—and click a button to add them to online shopping carts. (MySpace is owned by News Corp. , publisher of The Wall Street Journal.) The e-commerce trend, also being adopted by............ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272850463019656.html?mod=rss_whats_news_technology

Can Harbinger really change the industry? By  Bill Ray  •  Get more from this author Posted in  Mobile , 31st May 2010 09:02 GMT In the USA it's know as the Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) and is free to use with the satellite licence. So imagine for a moment that a satellite ...  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/31/harbinger/

Gubernatorial Debate on Fisheries Issues >> http://www.kmxt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1819&Itemid=2#JOSC_TOP On May 28th, six candidates for Alaska governor gathered at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium in Kodiak for the quadrenial debate on fisheries issues. In attendance were incumbent Sean Parnell, Republican challengers Bill Walker and Ralph Samuels, and Democratic candidates Ethan Berkowitz, Hollis French and Bob Poe. The debate is in three parts, linked above; Hours 1 and 2, and segment 3, which was after the debate when audience members asked the candidates questions in the "From the Frying Pan into the Fire" segment.

Audio >> http://www.kmxt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1813&Itemid=2#JOSC_TOP

DWINDLING CARIBOU: State set to kill seven wolves in calving area. By MARK THIESSEN The Associated Press Published: May 28th, 2010 10:08 PM Last Modified: May 29th, 2010 01:34 AM The state of Alaska sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday, seeking a court order allowing it to go ahead with a controversial predator control program. At issue is the state's plan to kill wolves to preserve a caribou herd inside the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge on Unimak Island, beginning as early as Tuesday. Last week, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced it would begin shooting some wolves on Unimak, the eastern-most island in the Aleutian chain, to protect caribou calving grounds as part of its aerial predator control program. While the program is in place in at least six locations around Alaska, it would be the first time in recent history that aerial predator control would be........... http://www.adn.com/2010/05/28/1299034/alaska-sues-feds

Article published on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 By LOUIS GARCIA Mirror Writer    The Kodiak City Council doesn’t agree with how the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) representative has been used by the Kodiak Island Borough. The problem lies with what Trevor Brown, the Chamber of Commerce economic development specialist who attends NPFMC meetings, should be doing. The bottom line for the City Council is there should be a joint agreement on responsibilities between the city and borough. If there are two views on a fishery topic, Brown should not be used as a spokesman for either entity, and should only speak for Kodiak as a whole when both agree on an issue. “If you’re having one spokesman who speaks for both … and there is a difference between policies, then he shouldn’t speak for either,” council member Tom Walters said. “When someone looks at him they’re going to say, ‘oh he’s speaking for the city and borough,”’ he added. The original intended t

17th District Public Affairs U.S. Coast Guard Multimedia Release Date: May 25, 2010 Contact: D17 PADET Western Alaska (907) 487-5700 Multimedia Release: First of six Alaskan Loran-C Stations decommissioned KODIAK, Alaska - Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Thomas Sears, officer in charge of Loran-C Station Kodiak, speaks on the history of Loran Stations in Alaska at the decommissioning ceremony for Loran Station Kodiak at the Golden Anchor on Coast Guard Base Kodiak May 25, 2010. Sears is the last officer in charge of the Loran Station in Kodiak serving 10 percent of the time at the Kodiak-based station when it was in active duty and is the first of six Alaska-based Loran-C station to be decommissioned. U.S. Coast Guard video by Petty Officer 3 rd Class Jonathan Lally. KODIAK, Alaska – Coast Guard Cmdr. James Boyer, 17 th Coast Guard District Waterways Management Division chief, left, and Cmdr. Marc Sanders, executive officer of the Coast Guard Navigational Ce

Gov. Parnell, five opponents aim to catch fishery votes May 24, 2010 Monday Kodiak, Alaska - Six candidates for Alaska governor will take part in a unique debate in Kodiak on Friday that focuses on a single topic: Alaska's seafood industry. Incumbent Governor Sean Parnell faces stiff competition from five opponents who hope to dethrone him from the seat he took over last summer. Joining him on the Kodiak stage are fellow Republicans Ralph Samuels and Bill Walker, and Democrats Ethan Berkowitz, Hollis French and Bob Poe. Since 1990 Kodiak has hosted fisheries debates for........ http://www.sitnews.us/0510news/052410/052410_talkfish.html

By PETER SVENSSON (AP) – 34 minutes ago AT&T Inc., then known as SBC Communications, paid $3.9 billion for Sterling in 2000, near the peak of the Internet bubble. The price tag was driven by forecasts that all "business to business" commerce would soon be conducted through online marketplaces not unlike a stock exchange, with demand dictating prices more efficiently.............  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jbWui9GgkaI8pKiR1Gx_SrzGUxogD9FT87GO0 More >>  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264132698045008.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

Written by Richard MacManus / May 24, 2010 2:49 AM In Part 1 of this series on mobile applications of the future , we looked at apps for food and supply chains, retail, and social networking. In Part 2, we check out ideas and early prototypes for mobile apps that literally interact with the world around you: buildings, objects and the environment. The ideas in this post come from a session at the recent ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit that I convened. Thanks to the participants! As noted in Part 1, sensors and RFID tags are small computer chips that connect real-world objects to the Internet. Increasingly data from these chips is being accessed and processed using mobile phones, which means a world of new opportunity for start-ups and developers. Buildings & Objects RFID data could make building mapping automated and much more accurate. It could......... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sensor_rfid_apps_buildings_environment.php

May 22, 8:00 AM EDT   ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Coast Guard says a cutter crew has recovered a drifting weather buoy near Homer..... http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=18&path=A/AK_BUOY_RECOVERED

17th District Public Affairs U.S. Coast Guard Multimedia Release Date: May 19, 2010 Contact: Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis (907) 321-4501 Multimedia release: Coast Guard rescues four following vessel sinking south of Montague Island Editors note: To view or download high resolution video and photos please click on the image below.   KODIAK, Alaska - The crew of a Kodiak-based MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter forward deployed to Cordova rescued four men from a liferaft three miles south of Montague Island in the Gulf of Alaska May 19, 2010, after their vessel, the 47-foot Juneau-based Cape Spencer, began taking on water and sank. The Coast Guard responded to their mayday call that was issued at 9:45 a.m. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Air Station Kodiak. KODIAK, Alaska - Coast Guard rescue of the crew of the 47-foot Juneau-based longliner Cape Spencer from a liferaft and skiff May 19, 2010, three miles south of Montague Island in the Gulf of Alaska. The four

Posted by thevillage Posted: May 19, 2010 - 5:31 pm The U.S. Commerce Department has approved  a new plan to cap the number of king salmon caught each year by the Bering Sea pollock fleet. The limits are meant to prevent trawlers from wasting Chinook that would otherwise return to the Yukon River and other spawning grounds. Western Alaska leaders who had pushed for much tighter restrictions on Wednesday blasted Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s decision to accept the plan, which was recommended last year by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. “Western Alaskan tribes as well as those responsible for managing our fisheries in river spoke loudly and clearly, but our requests fell on deaf ears to.......  http://community.adn.com/adn/node/151742

Published on May 19th, 2010 By MARGARET BAUMAN A new Anchorage firm focused on food, beverage and agri-products is honing in like a giant dating game to match up product providers and supply chain partners with commercial buyers seeking their products. The online introduction link for qualified buyers and independent suppliers and their supply chain partners is the brainchild of Anchorage businesswoman Robin Richardson and her business partner, Kearin Schulte of Denver. With fiber optics on tap and an increasing number of Alaska communities getting connected to broadband, Alaska entrepreneurs are positioned to create products that are solutions for buyers and engage in true partnership relationships, Richardson said. "We've never had that before," said Richardson, member-manager of Global Food Collaborative LLC. Rather than defer to people in the Lower 48 to make the connection, there is no reason why Alaskans can't now be directly engaged in forming business rel

by Ariel Schwartz , 05/10/10  If all goes well, Silver Lining plans to test the process with 10 ships spread throughout 3800 square miles of ocean. Even if that goes well, the technology has a long way to go before it can significantly alter the climate — a recent study showed that it would it take 1,900 ships at a cost of over $7 billion to stop Earth’s temperature from rising........ http://inhabitat.com/2010/05/10/bill-gates-announces-funding-for-seawater-spraying-cloud-machines/ Original source > http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7120011.ece

By Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 16, 2010; A01 In total darkness at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico lives a creature with many scuttling legs and two wiggling antennae that jut from a pinched, space-alien face. It is the isopod, Bathynomus giganteus , a scavenger of dead and rotten flesh on the mud floor of the gulf. "If you think of a giant roach, put it on steroids," said Thomas Shirley, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University. "They can be scary big." There is beauty in the lightless deep as well. Fan corals, lacylike doilies, form gardens on the seafloor and on sunken ships. The deep is full of crabs, sponges, sea anemones. Sharks hunt in the dark depths, as do sperm whales that feed on giant squid. The sperm whales have formed a year-round colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and have been known to rub themselves on oil pipes just like grizzlies rubbing against pine trees. This is the unseen.

May 12, 2010 By Ben Ellison .......... Globalstar is promising that this new constellation will eventually provide "data speeds of up to 256 kbps in a flexible Internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) configuration" expected to provide services like "push-to-talk and multicasting, advanced messaging capabilities such as multimedia messaging or MMS, mobile video, geo-location services, multi-band and multi-mode handsets, and data devices with GPS integration.".... ......... Iridium announced that its smaller, cheaper 9602 SBD modem is ready ahead of schedule for some 90 "integration partners," and a few weeks before that Inmarsat detailed its IsatPhone Pro (due in June), including its game changing pricing. ............ http://www.cruisingworld.com/gear-and-systems/2002-boty-archive/inmarsat-iridium-and-globalstarthe-horse-race-1000082918.html

Written by Mike Melanson / May 11, 2010 10:32 AM Google is continuing with its effort to become the one-stop translation shop, announcing today that it has added speech capabilities to more languages on Google Translate , its polylingual text translation tool. The feature uses the open-source speech synthesizer eSpeak to turn text into sound, giving Google Translate users the ability to hear how the words they're seeing are supposed to be pronounced. eSpeak uses a " formant synthesis " method, which....... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_translate_now_speaks_more_than_30_languages.php

Anchorage Daily News Published: May 13th, 2010 09:22 PM Last Modified: May 13th, 2010 09:22 PM WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A U.S. Senate committee voted Thursday to give $5 million in disaster aid to Yukon River king salmon fishermen hammered by years of poor runs and fishing restrictions. http://www.adn.com/2010/05/13/1277258/yukon-fishermen-to-get-5m-in-disaster.html

Image via CrunchBase By Peter B. de Selding PARIS — Mobile satellite services provider Iridium Communications has made a $19 million deposit with a launch-services provider to lock in contract terms for the launch of its second-generation Iridium Next constellation and expects to select a prime contractor for the 66 satellites this summer, company officials said. McLean, Va.-based Iridium is also opening two new fronts against its competition this year, reducing the price of its telephone handsets to prepare for a lower-priced offering by Inmarsat of London, and rolling out a two-way personal satellite tracking device to attack a market being developed by competitor Globalstar of Milpitas, Calif. In a May 11 conference call with investors, Iridium Chief Executive Matthew J. Desch said the company has already cut prices for its 9555 telephone by around $200 as it positions itself against the arrival, starting in June, of the first-ever handset produced for veteran mobile-sa

By LAINE WELCH   May 11, 2010 Tuesday And the Oscar goes to Yukon River salmon! The story of wild Yukon River salmon claimed top honors last week by the James Beard Foundation at a celebrity studded gala in New York City. Founded in 1986, the Foundation celebrates and nurtures America's culinary heritage and diversity. The award - considered the Oscars of the food world - was in the media TV Show/On Location category as part of a PBS series called "Chefs A' Field." The segment titled "King of Alaska" featured nationally acclaimed restaurateur and chef Rick Moonen, and was filmed almost entirely in Emmonak. It was created by Heidi Hanson and Chris Warner of Warner-Hanson Television. "This wasn't just a set up deal where the put up some back drops. The whole crew spent a week with the people on the lower Yukon," said Jack Schultheis, general manage

Image by pug freak via Flickr FRESH: Fishery opens thursday, fish to be at market on saturday. By STEVE EDWARDS Daily News correspondent Published: May 11th, 2010 09:28 PM Last Modified: May 11th, 2010 09:48 PM If last weekend's sunny weather wasn't enough to verify the arrival of spring, Thursday's upcoming opening of the Copper River salmon fishery certainly testifies to spring's arrival. While some of the first fish out of Cordova will be headed Outside to feed folks in Seattle, New York or other locales, Anchorage fish-lovers needn't worry. Jean Debruler of Alaskan Seafood Specialties says they will be at Saturday's Anchorage Farmers Market on 15th Avenue and Cordova Street with fresh Copper River kings and reds. "The salmon I bring will be the freshest and finest available -- caught Thursday and......... http://www.adn.com/2010/05/11/1273833/copper-river-salmon-expected-at.html

May 11, 2010 10:02 AM A White House report warns, "The childhood obesity epidemic in America is a national health crisis." The review by the Task Force on Childhood Obesity says one out of every three children is overweight or obese. The task force is a key part of First Lady Michelle Obama's campaign to solve the problem of obesity within a generation. President Obama ordered the comprehensive review of the issue. The report includes familiar themes, emphasizing the ...... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004653-503544.html

By Bruce Einhorn May 6, 2010, 2:00PM EST Agricultural Bank of China wants to raise at least $30 billion, as Chinese lenders evolve from government playthings to globally competitive banks The World Expo that kicked off in Shanghai on May 1 is the kind of spectacle Beijing officialdom loves, a grand showcase for China's economic ascendancy. Another fanfare event, this time in the realm of global finance, is the initial public offering expected this summer by the Agricultural Bank of China, which may prove to be the world's biggest ever. The state-owned lender hopes to raise $20 billion to $30 billion, a top Chinese official told the Beijing Times last month. A successful offering by AgBank would be another step in the evolution of Chinese lenders from government-controlled playthings to globally competitive banks. Everything about this deal is big, even the $200 million in bank underwriting fees up for grabs for global investment banks. AgBank has hired 10 bank

May 10, 2010 ........ Planned Iridium 9602-based applications include telemetry from unattended sensors, fleet management, enterprise logistics and supply-chain visibility, tracking soldiers and military vehicles, and personal two-way navigation and mapping. .......... http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=429355658 ***************** Related: Iridium 9602 & Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro, oh boy! Jan 29, 2010 The smaller, cheaper Iridium short-burst data (SBD) modem I heard about at Fort Lauderdale is now official and, wow, doesn't it look able to "disappear into as many marine devices as possible!"  It even has GPS input/output ports so that it and the modem can easily....... http://www.panbo.com/archives/2010/01/iridium_9602_inmarsat_isatphone_pro_oh_boy.html

Image by Gen Kanai via Flickr Image via CrunchBase by Serkan Toto on May 10, 2010  Big news from the Asian web world today. Yahoo Japan ( Japan’s biggest website ) and Taobao (China’s largest e-retailer) have agreed to launch a cross-border initiative under which both services will link their online shopping services starting June 1. Through the tie-up, Yahoo Japan and Taobao merchants will be able to sell products to buyers in each other’s markets. For that purpose, Yahoo Japan will launch a so-called China Mall in its......... http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/10/yahoo-japan-and-chinas-taobao-announce-cross-border-e-commerce-tie-up/

Web posted Friday, May 7, 2010 By Andrew Jensen Alaska Journal of Commerce Seiners are picking up the slack in Kodiak as gillnetters largely sit out the herring season thanks to historically low prices being offered by processors. Both gear types stayed at the docks for the Kodiak season opening April 15 with processors only offering between $200 and $250 per ton, less than half of the $525 per ton paid in 2009 and well off the five-year average of $445 per ton. After processors agreed to a price of $400 per ton plus "points" – bonuses paid for the amount of the roe weight greater than 10 percent – boats hit the water April 19. The price still isn't high enough to induce the more time- and labor-intensive gillnetters, though, and regulations allow the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to "rollover" unused quota set aside for gillnetters to seiners. Much of the gillnet quota for the Alitak district of Kodiak has been rolled over to seiners and the In

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia About 1 day ago Mitchell Harper   Here are my five predictions for how that will happen. 1. Amazon won’t be the only online store with sophisticated personalization. 2. Facebook will start driving more traffic to some online stores than Google. 3. Google will adopt Facebook’s Open Graph protocol. 4. The Open Graph is laying the foundation for wider adoption of Facebook Credits. 5. E-commerce conversion rates will increase.  Details >  http://mashable.com/2010/05/07/facebook-open-graph-ecommerce/

Image via Wikipedia By SCOTT BOWLEN Daily News Staff Writer Fish culture runs deep in Ketchikan. It touches us all in some way - through our work and play; through our shared history and geography. Most visitors, however, possess only a vague idea about the multifaceted role of fishing in the Ketchikan community. A new film that debuts here Friday provides a sumptuously detailed overview of our commercial and recreational fishing lifestyles, products and opportunities. It's called "Ketchikan: A Fish Story." And it's part of a new suite of video, photo, text and Web materials that have been created with a specific mission in relation to visitors. "We didn't just want to tell the story in an accurate and authentic way," said Chuck Slagle, one of the film's producers. "We wanted people to realize that, when it comes to seafood or fishing, Ketchikan is a really good spot for them to choose those experiences." Funded th

Undersea robot helps scientists to track fish : "Some zoologists need binoculars to study their subjects. Others need a bit more help."

May 06, 2010 — Alaska Dispatch reporter Craig Medred flew over the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on May 6.

6 hrs ago FAIRBANKS — Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks will get more than half a million dollars during the next two years to study the declines of western Alaska king salmon run. The study will be funded with a $435,000 grant from the Pollock Conservation Cooperative Research Center and $180,000 in matching funds from the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, according to a press release. UAF professor Milo Adkinson and assistant professors Larissa Dehn and Megan McPhee will lead the project, which includes a consortium of UAF fisheries faculty from ....... http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/7345003/article-UAF-scientists-to-study-king-salmon-declines

Article published on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 By SAM FRIEDMAN Mirror Writer  Most of the seafloor pictures around Kodiak and in the Bering Sea look about the same, a cloud of mud, some brittle stars and an occasional fish. But if you spend a summer dragging a sled with a high-resolution camera you are certain to come across some interesting sights. Gregg Rosencrantz shared some of his photos and stories to an audience at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge last week. Among the highlights are shots of female opilio crabs swarming over males, octopi hiding in rocks to ambush pray and clusters of bright pink sunflower sea stars.   “Someone should start a scuba charter out there,” Rosencrantz said over one colorful shot taken in the Bering Sea betwee................... http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=19&id=8750

Associated Press - May 5, 2010 5:34 PM ET JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - The date for state Sen. Albert Kookesh's subsistence fishing violation trial has been delayed again. The Sitka Superior Court reports Kookesh and.............. http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=12432133

Image via Wikipedia 05/5/10 10:22 AM ET  ................... Coface has been the most active export-credit agency in the satellite sector. In addition to providing make-or-break   support for the Globalstar mobile-communications constellation , Coface has signaled tentative   support for the O3b constellation   of satellites designed to bring Internet connectivity to the less-developed world............ http://www.spacenews.com/launch/100505-ariane-launch-hughes-sat.html

Wednesday, May 05, 2010 Story last updated at 5/5/2010 - 10:56 am By Mary Pemberton |   The Associated Press ANCHORAGE - Three former top administrators with the state Department of Fish and Game are warning Gov. Sean Parnell about a bill that would allow a Native corporation to hand-pick lands in the Tongass National Forest. The bill pending in Congress would convey up to 85,000 acres to Sealaska Corp., with lands.......... http://juneauempire.com/stories/050510/sta_63406520 4.shtml

ESCAPEMENT: Theodore, Lewis, Chuitna rivers join list. By MIKE CAMPBELL mcampbell@adn.com Published: May 4th, 2010 08:47 PM Last Modified: May 4th, 2010 08:47 PM Worried that another dismal king salmon season is looming, biologists at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Tuesday closed three more Southcentral king salmon fisheries before the first salmon arrived.     Anglers are banned from fishing for kings on the Theodore, Lewis and Chuitna rivers. Even catch and release is off limits. That.....  http://www.adn.com/2010/05/04/1263755/state-shuts-three-more-king-fisheries.html

Image via Wikipedia Assuming it ever actually gets built... 10:03AM Tuesday May 04 2010 by  Karl Bode tags:  business  ·  alternatives  ·  bandwidth  ·  wireless According to a report in the  Financial Times , T-Mobile owners Deutsche Telekom have been in talks with the New York hedge fund planning to launch a national U.S. LTE network. As we  mentioned last month , Harbinger Capital Partners owns a satellite subsidiary by the name of SkyTerra -- who just so happens to have the spectrum necessary to...........  http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/TMobile-Interested-In-Harbinger-LTE-Network-108225

Alaska's 2010 salmon season By LAINE WELCH   May 04, 2010 Tuesday AM It's hard to believe, but Alaska's 2010 salmon season officially begins in less than two weeks with the May 13 opener for kings and reds at Copper River! State fishery managers project a total commercial catch of 1.27 million sockeye salmon from Copper River this season, compared to less than 900,000 last year. "We're expecting lots of four year old fish so that bodes well for the season," said Fish and Game's Steve Moffitt at Cordova. As with many other regions of the state, the expectations for king salmon at Copper River are low, with a projected catch of just 17,000 Chinook. Last year the drift fleet of roughly 500 boats took 9,500 king salmon from the famous River, the lowest catch since the 1960s.   Meanwhile, Southeast Alaska trollers wrapped up their winter king salmon fishery w

Updated May 02, 2010 Associated Press The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is closing commercial and recreational fishing from Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico...... http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/02/gulf-mexico-oil-spill-closes-fishing-louisiana-florida-panhandle/

April 29, 2010 12:04 PM A little over a week and a half ago, a number of bloggers spotted a new feature in Google search for languages that use non-Latin scripts: virtual keyboards that make typing search queries in these languages easier. Today, Google officially announced that it will make virtual keyboards a default feature on Google search for 35 languages, including.......... http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_search_gets_virtual_keyboards.php

Article published on Friday, April 30th, 2010 By LOUIS GARCIA Mirror Writer Representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) were in Kodiak Thursday morning for a question and answer meeting on the restructuring of the North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program. The current observer program does not include observer coverage requirements for commercial halibut vessels that operate in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) and Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI), or for less than 60-foot commercial groundfish vessels that operate in the GOA and BSAI. The NPFMC presented five observer program restructuring alternatives. “We want a program that is workable, cost effective, minimizes the impact on the fleet recognizing their...... http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com/?pid=19&id=8739