This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is designed to contribute to better and more efficient management of a part of our natural resources. Current analyses of fish stocks (by National Marine Fisheries Service and several state departments of fish & game) are unnecessarily expensive, time-consuming and inaccurate. Ultimately, this contributes to compromised Government resource management policy-making. The result is the risk of over fishing and considerable economic damage. Via research and development this project will produce a prototype integrated 'plug & play' system to automate these analyses. The developed system will be marketed first to the several dozens of U. S. federal and state agencies having a need for it, and thereby will help to establish more precise measurement standards that will be accepted by the worldwide community. The subsequent result of worldwide marketing activity will benefit the fish management and research activities in more than 20 countries, and solidify the U. S. developed and promulgated standards and measurement techniques.
