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Fishing

About: Fishing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 26543 publications have been published within this topic receiving 455552 citations. The topic is also known as: angling.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Investigation of long-term variability within a demersal fish assemblage in the western English Channel showed that temporal trends in the abundance of smaller multispecies size classes followed thermal regime changes, but that there were persistent declines in abundance of larger size classes.
Abstract: Commercial fishing and climate change have influenced the composition of marine fish assemblages worldwide, but we require a better understanding of their relative influence on long-term changes in species abundance and body-size distributions. In this study, we investigated long-term (1911‐2007) variability within a demersal fish assemblage in the western English Channel. The region has been subject to commercial fisheries throughout most of the past century, and has undergone interannual changes in sea temperature of over 2.01C. We focussed on a core 30 species that comprised 99% of total individuals sampled in the assemblage. Analyses showed that temporal trends in the abundance of smaller multispecies size classes followed thermal regime changes, but that there were persistent declines in abundance of larger size classes. Consistent with these results, larger-growing individual species had the greatest declines in body size, and the most constant declines in abundance, while abundance changes of smaller-growing species were more closely linked to preceding sea temperatures. Together these analyses are suggestive of dichotomous size-dependent responses of species to long-term climate change and commercial fishing over a century scale. Small species had rapid responses to the prevailing thermal environment, suggesting their life history traits predisposed populations to respond quickly to changing climates. Larger species declined in abundance and size, reflecting expectations from sustained size-selective overharvesting. These results demonstrate the importance of considering species traits when developing indicators of human and climatic impacts on marine fauna.

180 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The search for ‘pristine’ baselines regarding marine ecosystems will need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records.
Abstract: The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca. 100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period-when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records.

180 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors synthesize data on numbers of fishers, participation rates, days fished, expenditures, and catches of two widely targeted species were synthesized to provide European estimates of recreational fishing and placed in the global context.
Abstract: Marine recreational fishing (MRF) is a high-participation activity with large economic value and social benefits globally, and it impacts on some fish stocks. Although reporting MRF catches is a European Union legislative requirement, estimates are only available for some countries. Here, data on numbers of fishers, participation rates, days fished, expenditures, and catches of two widely targeted species were synthesized to provide European estimates of MRF and placed in the global context. Uncertainty assessment was not possible due to incomplete knowledge of error distributions; instead, a semi-quantitative bias assessment was made. There were an estimated 8.7 million European recreational sea fishers corresponding to a participation rate of 1.6%. An estimated 77.6 million days were fished, and expenditure was €5.9 billion annually. There were higher participation, numbers of fishers, days fished and expenditure in the Atlantic than the Mediterranean, but the Mediterranean estimates were generally less robust. Comparisons with other regions showed that European MRF participation rates and expenditure were in the mid-range, with higher participation in Oceania and the United States, higher expenditure in the United States, and lower participation and expenditure in South America and Africa. For both northern European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax, Moronidae) and western Baltic cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae) stocks, MRF represented 27% of the total removals. This study highlights the importance of MRF and the need for bespoke, regular and statistically sound data collection to underpin European fisheries management. Solutions are proposed for future MRF data collection in Europe and other regions to support sustainable fisheries management.

180 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: An overview of how the fishery-management councils are fulfilling the essential fish habitat mandate by using a broader ecosystem approach to conservation that considers the ecological role of managed species, analyzes species' habitat needs from state waters to the high seas, and examines shifts in population health and sustainability over the course of decades is given.
Abstract: The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act recognizes that fish stocks depend on healthy ecosystems and requires that fishery managers expand their management regimes to include the very basis of healthy fisheries-the habitat itself. The 1996 amendments to this primary United States marine fishery-management law include a new mandate to identify habitats essential to managed living marine resources and to take steps to ensure that those habitats remain healthy and can support sustainable fisheries. Until now, the legislative mandate for protecting habitat for marine and anadromous stocks came through statutes not specifically focused on the needs of commercial and recreational fish species. Now, there is explicit linkage between fishery-management programs, traditionally designed to manage the harvesting activity itself, and efforts to ensure that fishing and nonfishing activities do not undermine the productivity of the stocks. This emphasis on habitat health and productivity brings a broader ecosystem perspective to traditional fishery management.The insertion of essential fish habitat (EFH) provisions into fisheries management has been an enormous undertaking. The agency and the regional fishery management councils, working with other partners, completed the first stage of the process within very tight statutory deadlines. The councils have made use of all of the tools provided them under the act and the EFH regulations, such as designating habitat areas of particular concern (EFH-HAPCs), recommending fishing restrictions within special areas, defining priority research and information needs, and documenting threats and conservation measures appropriate for federal actions that may adversely affect EFH. This effort has entailed a great deal of scientific as well as policy analysis. We are currently implementing the federal consultation process to address threats to fish habitat in a consistent and timely manner.This new habitat thrust will align fishery managers and scientists with new allies in the habitat arena, increasing benefits to marine resource-management programs and fishery management. As suggested by the theme of this issue, an understanding and consideration of marine reserves and other special-area management concepts can benefit federal fishery management. This article gives an overview of how the fishery-management councils are fulfilling the essential fish habitat mandate by using a broader ecosystem approach to conservation that considers the ecological role of managed species, analyzes species' habitat needs from state waters to the high seas, and examines shifts in population health and sustainability over the course of decades.

180 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple multiple-choice logit model was used to examine whether recent information on success in various regions aids in explaining location choice, and the results suggest that fishermen do account for economic factors in a manner consistent with economic theories of choice.
Abstract: This article analyzes fishing location choices made by pink shrimp (Pandalus jordani) fishermen fishing off the coast of northern California. Data were gathered for 17 commercial vessels making 3000 net sets over a season. A simple multiplechoice logit model was used to examine whether recent information on success in various regions aids in explaining location choice. Results suggest that fishermen do account for economic factors in a manner consistent with economic theories of choice.

180 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20231,709
20223,569
20211,068
20201,247
20191,089
20181,130