If you read the news brief in our August 19th edition (NOAA Fisheries “Re-Envisioning” Recreational Data Collection) you know that our federal fisheries agency is now in the eighth month of a large-scale study to determine differences in angler recall and its impact on recreational fishing effort estimates in the current Fishing Effort Survey (FES) compared to a revised design.
The FES is part of the postcard campaign that NOAA Fisheries uses to randomly survey folks at home to learn how much fishing they actually do, the number of trips they’ve taken, and how many people tagged along. A second survey component to monitor recreational harvest through the Marine Recreational Information Program has to do with the actual species caught, and how many; that random data comes from dockside samples where surveyors ask a few questions about actual catch, checking random angler coolers to confirm. Eventually, both pieces of survey data – effort and catch – are entered into some algorithmic model to determine whether we’re at, above or below our annual catch limit in the recreational fishing sector.
Suffice to say, it’s all random and in no way a pound-for-pound analysis of what anglers are catching, and probably never will be. New Jersey, Delaware Bay edition field editor Eric Burnley has a regular column in Delaware’s Cape Gazette where he just put the spotlight on this NOAA Fisheries “re-envisioning” process (Are They Finally Getting The Idea?) towards improved recreational data collection. The basis of Eric’s piece below comes from a pair of government press releases, one from NOAA and the other from the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
“Let’s look at the one from NOAA Fisheries first. It was sent by NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology Director Evan Howell. He provided a progress update on the ongoing study of the Fishing Effort Survey and the collaborative initiative to re-envision the recreational fishing data partnership. I noticed throughout his presentation, he mentions this partnership quite often without ever revealing exactly who these partners are.
The revised Fishing Effort Survey is showing improved data, with a reduction in reporting errors and illogical responses. Also, respondents are less likely to indicate more trips for the two-month fishing reference period than for the 12-month reference period. There is still a large amount of data to be collected and analyzed before a final conclusion can be made.
One of the objectives of this study is to build trust and credibility with state partners and the angling community. For this objective, I would say they have a long way to go. By the way, this study was undertaken not because recreational fishermen have been screaming about how bad their data was. Oh no, it was undertaken because the Bureau of Measurements and Standards found their data so far out of whack it was unusable.
Believe it or not, but the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council is asking for your ideas on how the next five-year strategic plan should be developed. This is the plan of objectives the council will operate under for the next five years.”
Those comments, if you care to contribute, can be emailed to msabo@mafmc.org by Wednesday, September 4. As Eric noted in the Cape Gazette, you might be tempted to ask for all the fluke and sea bass to get allocated to the angling community; but you should probably consider items that are actually attainable, like more transparent rule-making, or requesting that bureaucrats listen more closely to advisory council members and the angling public.
My comment would be that NOAA Fisheries shouldn’t restrict access to any recreational fisheries (like the proposed 20% reduction in 2025 black sea bass) until they’ve actually fixed this flawed FES and MRIP data. While that might help “build trust and credibility with state partners and the angling community,” it’s simply another unattainable request of a broken bureaucracy that’s still 2 years away from completing their recreational “re-envisioning” project.
