The AKFIN Gross Earnings Workgroup will be meeting Tuesday May 22nd at 9:00 AM Alaska time.  The purpose of the workgroup is to investigate and document the different methods used to calculate gross earnings and when possible develop standardized approaches to calculate and report revenue.  The group is comprised of economists, data stewards, and database programmers.  This will be the fourth meeting since the groups first meeting in 2010.

The 2011 fisheries data from the State of Alaska are available to authorized users in AKFIN’s Comprehensive_Encoar_Prod, Comprehensive_Encoar_Buy, and Comrprehensive_FT database tables. The 2011 Encoar_Prod and Encoar_Buy data are preliminary at this time.

Chinook and non-Chinook salmon bycatch census data for the Bering Sea has been incorporated into AKFIN’s Comprehensive_PSC dataset.  The census data is available for 2011 to present and replaces the extrapolated salmon sample data.

AKFIN’s annual advisory committee meeting is scheduled for the 18th of April, 2012. This meeting will be held at the Regional Office of the National Marine Fisheries Service and will commence at 8:30 and adjourn at 4:00. The design of the meeting is to set development priorities and goals for the AKFIN program as well as to provide feedback on ongoing projects and products. The meeting agenda will be e-mailed to participants in early April.

AKFIN Answers is scheduled to be upgraded to version 11.1.1.6 on Thursday the 8th of March, 2012. The system will not be available to users during the upgrade process, which will start at 6:00 AM PST and end at approximately 12:00 PM PST.

AKFIN has obtained saltwater sport fish charter logbook lookup tables from ADF&G. These lookup tables provide authorized users the ability to link trips and catch to port-site locations as well as ADF&G and IPHC catch areas.

AKFIN staff will be in Juneau on the 13th of March, 2012 for an annual planning and development meeting on AKFIN Answers. This meeting is devoted to the fisheries stock assessment team at the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute (TSMRI) and will focus on reviewing the past years performance as well as on planning and developing AKFIN Answers for the next stock assessment season.  This also provides an opportunity for progressive training on the use of AKFIN Answers, and is an excellent team building experience.

AKFIN has received revised 2006 and 2007 Alaska salmon subsistence data and has loaded these data to the CP_ADFG_SUB_SALMON table in the ADFG schema. The CP_ADFG_SUB_SALMON  table has Alaska salmon subsistence data by year and community from 1975 through 2008.

AKFIN updates several of its comprehensive tables on Friday of each week. The new data is one week old, meaning the delay between the time that the new data were created and the time that they appear in the AKFIN database is one week. Here is the list of comprehensive tables that are updated weekly:

• comprehensive_blend_ca,
• comprehensive_nontarget,
• comprehensive_norpac_haul,
• comprehensive_OBS,
• comprehensive_OBS_haul,
• comprehensive_PSC and
• comprehensive_WPR.

AKFIN’s database now has freshwater and saltwater data from the Alaska  Statewide Harvest Survey (SWHS). The freshwater SWHS data was recently added and includes years 2000 through 2010. These data were obtained from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Sport Fish Division, which conducts an annual mail survey to estimate total sport fishing effort and harvest by species.