|
FSU study reveals sport fishing takes a big bite of ocean catch
Taking a hard look at the common belief that recreational fishing accounts for only a tiny fraction of total catches in the United States, a new study led by Florida State University biologist Felicia Coleman reveals that sport fishing accounts for nearly a quarter of the total take of overfished populations.
These include many of the most economically valuable species such as red snapper, red drum, lingcod and bocaccio. For some depleted species--particularly the popular large fishes--the study found that recreational landings outstrip commercial landings. This was true for red snapper and gag grouper in the Gulf of Mexico (59 percent recreational landings and 56 percent, respectively), red drum in the South Atlantic (93 percent) and bocaccio on the Pacific coast (87 percent).
"The conventional wisdom is that recreational fishing is a small proportion of the total take, so it is largely overlooked," said Coleman. "But if you remove pollock and menhaden -- two strictly commercially caught species that account for over half of all landings -- the recreational take rises to 10 percent nationally. If you focus on fish identified by the federal government as species of concern, it rises to 23 percent."
The study was published Aug. 26 by the journal Science on its Science Express Web site, and it will be printed in a later edition. The study was authored by Coleman with Will Figueira of Australia's University of Technology, Sydney, FSU doctoral candidate Jeffrey Ueland and Duke University Professor Larry Crowder.
Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the study is the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of recreational saltwater fishing in the United States. Using federal and state data, the researchers compared commercial and recreational landings for the past 22 years--first for all federally managed fish, and then for species classified by the National Marine Fisheries Service as "over-fished" or "experiencing over-fishing."
In the Gulf of Mexico, recreational catches of overfished species in 2002 made up 64 percent of landings. Sport fishing also resulted in 38 percent of the catches of these species in the South Atlantic, 59 percent along the Pacific coast and 12 percent in the Northeast.
"With over 10 million saltwater recreational anglers in this country, and recreational fishing activity growing as much as 20 percent in the last 10 years, their aggregate impact is far from benign," Figueira said.
There is a long-held belief that the individual catches of recreational fishermen could never take a significant bite out of the ocean's bounty. But recreational fishermen today are equipped with technologies that make them every bit as effective as their commercial counterparts, such as sonar devices and global positioning systems to find fish and powerful boats to travel far offshore.
"The large impacts of recreational fisheries surprised us, and they may startle many people, including fishermen, concerned about the health of our oceans," said Crowder, a visiting professor in fisheries ecology at FSU this fall.
Additionally, recreational fishing targets large, top-level predatory fish in the ocean. Removal of these fish can lessen species diversity, creating dramatic changes in ocean food webs that alter the overall productivity and health of marine ecosystems.
While the cumulative impact of commercial fishing is constrained by limits on how much fish can be caught, there are no controls on the aggregate impact of sport fishing. Current management of saltwater recreational fisheries focuses primarily on the individual fisherman--setting limits on the number and size of fish one can bring in--without restricting the number of people allowed to fish.
"Recreational fishing is important to many people," said Coleman, a marine ecology expert. "But if folks want to continue fishing, we all need to support management of both commercial and recreational fisheries that will allow fish populations to recover."
|
AUDIO