Abstract
Understanding how recreational angling effort responds to regulatory adjustment is important for rebuilding overfished stocks such as Atlantic striped bass Morone saxatilis. In this paper, we use stated preference choice experiment data to evaluate how individual angler participation may respond to changes in fishing trip characteristics, particularly the number of small, medium-sized, and trophy striped bass kept and released. We use these results to simulate the aggregate effect of alternative fishing policies in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut on angler welfare, angler effort, recreational fishing mortality, and female spawning stock biomass. We find that a wide range of economically efficient policies are available if the primary management objective is to control recreational fishing mortality. In contrast, we find that the range of efficient policies is quite narrow if the primary management objective is to protect female spawning stock biomass. Additionally, only one of the 36 alternative policies analyzed; a one-fish harvest slot of 28” to 36”, is expected to achieve a nontrivial reduction in both total and female spawning stock removals relative to the actual 2015 policy of one fish, 28” or longer. Implementing a one-fish harvest slot of 28” to 36” comes with minimal costs in terms of foregone angler welfare due to the relatively low rate at which trophy striped bass in excess of 36” are encountered.
Highlights
Bag and size limits are primary management tools used to control the impact of recreational angling on fish stocks
To what extent does aggregate angler effort and welfare vary with the imposition of minimum length (ML) versus harvest slot (HS) policies? We address this question in the context of the recreational Atlantic striped bass fishery by quantifying the immediate economic and biological returns to several types of harvest size restrictions and in doing so, complement this stream of biological literature
Model 1 is a restricted version of Eq (3) which excludes the four regulatory variables that are included in Model 2
Summary
Bag and size limits are primary management tools used to control the impact of recreational angling on fish stocks. For these policies to be effective, angler effort responses must align with management objectives because any perceived change in fishing quality, policy-induced or otherwise, factors into angler decision-making processes and inevitably affects realized angler welfare, behavior, and contributions to fish mortality (Fenichel et al, 2013). Impacts of Recreational Striper Fishing Policy bag and size limits on angler welfare, behavior, and the two conservation metrics most relevant for managers of this fishery: recreational fishing mortality and female spawning stock biomass (SSB). Recreational striped bass harvest by weight in 2017, and in many years past, was the largest among all recreationally targeted species in the United States (National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS], 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
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