The demand for angling licenses: A case study from Taupo, New Zealand

Abstract

Lake Taupo is managed as a wild trout fishery funded entirely by the sale of angling licenses. Since 1986 license sales have more than halved and this study aimed to identify the factors driving this trend. We used an economic demand theory framework in which to estimate least squares multiple regression models of license sales for the 45-year period 1970/71–2014/15. Using first-differenced data to avoid multicollinearity, we found that the sale of each license type (i.e., adult day, week, month and season, and child day and season) was influenced by its own price and the prices of substitutes, together with a variable to measure the overall interest in Taupo angling – the total license sales to population ratio. In a separate model, we found that this ratio was primarily influenced by various measures of the quality of the fishing, together with the unemployment rate. Other variables used widely in the literature to explain declining angling participation, such as development, income, urbanisation, changing leisure interests, and demographic changes, were not statistically significant. We discuss the implications of our results for the management of the fishery.