Fisheries assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users?

Citation
B. Neis et al., Fisheries assessment: what can be learned from interviewing resource users?, CAN J FISH, 56(10), 1999, pp. 1949-1963
Citations number
41
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
Aquatic Sciences
Journal title
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES
ISSN journal
0706-652X → ACNP
Volume
56
Issue
10
Year of publication
1999
Pages
1949 - 1963
Database
ISI
SICI code
0706-652X(199910)56:10<1949:FAWCBL>2.0.ZU;2-P
Abstract
Fishers have detailed knowledge of their resources, their environment, and their fishing practices that is rarely systematically collected. We conduct ed three types of interviews with coastal Newfoundland fishers to identify the range of information available, to see if it could be quantified, and t o explore its potential for reconstructing trends within fisheries. These f ishers have many terms for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), each associated wit h characteristic patterns of seasonal movement and availability to gear and indicating the location of several coastal spawning areas. They described a variety of changes in fishing practice. Of the four changes that could be quantified, all contributed to decadal-scale increases in catch efficiency prior to 1992, while change in catch per unit of effort for cod was consis tently negative at decadal scales. For these fishers' lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) roe fishery, catch per unit of effort was consistently negative in the 1990s. We describe ways to access the large reservoir of information h eld by fishers, the use of several cross-checks to identify consistent patt erns, and the use of trends and patterns to broaden the basis for interpret ing quantitative surveys used in fisheries assessment. Local information fr om resource users can be assembled in forms usable in quantitative stock as sessments.