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.

The understudied and underappreciated role of predation in the mortality of fish released from fishing gears

Abstract: The assumption that animals released from fishing gears survive has frequently been scrutinized by researchers in recent years. Mortality estimates from these research efforts can be incorporated into management models to ensure the sustainability of fisheries and the conservation of threatened species. Post-release mortality estimates are typically made by holding the catch in a tank, pen or cage for short-term monitoring (e.g. 48 h). These estimates may be inaccurate in some cases because they fail to integrate the challenges of the wild environment. Most obvious among these challenges is predator evasion. Stress and injury from a capture experience can temporarily impair physiological capacity and alter behaviour in released animals, a period during which predation risk is likely elevated. In large-scale commercial fisheries, predators have adapted their behaviour to capitalize on impaired fishes being discarded, while in recreational catch-and-release fisheries, exercise and air exposure can similarly impede the capacity for released fish to evade opportunistic predators. Owing to the indirect and often cryptic nature of this source of mortality, very few studies have attempted to document it. A survey of the literature demonstrated that <2% of the papers in the combined realms of bycatch and catch-and-release have directly addressed or considered post-release predation. Future research should combine field telemetry and laboratory studies using both natural and simulated predation encounters and incorporate physiological and behavioural endpoints. Quite simply, predation is an understudied and underappreciated contributor to the mortality of animals released from fishing gears.

Protection of fish spawning habitat for the conservation of warm-temperate reef-fish fisheries of shelf-edge reefs of Florida

Abstract: We mapped and briefly describe the surficial geology of selected examples of shelfedge reefs (50–120 m deep) of the southeastern United States, which are apparently derived from ancient Pleistocene shorelines and are intermittently distributed throughout the region. These reefs are ecologically significant because they support a diverse array of fish and invertebrate species, and they are the only aggregation spawning sites of gag (Mycteroperca microlepis), scamp (M. phenax), and other economically important reef fish. Our studies on the east Florida shelf in the Experimental Oculina Research Reserve show that extensive damage to the habitat-structuring coral Oculina varicosa has occurred in the past, apparently from trawling and dredging activities of the 1970s and later. On damaged or destroyed Oculina habitat, reef-fish abundance and diversity are low, whereas on intact habitat, reef-fish diversity is relatively high compared to historical diversity on the same site. The abundance and biomass of the economically important reef fish was much higher in the past than it is now, and spawning aggregations of gag and scamp have been lost or greatly reduced in size. On the west Florida shelf, fishers have concentrated on shelf-edge habitats for over 100 yrs, but fishing intensity increased dramatically in the 1980s. Those reefs are characterized by low abundance of economically important species. The degree and extent of habitat damage there is unknown. We recommend marine fishery reserves to protect habitat and for use in experimentally examining the potential production of unfished communities. Ecosystem-oriented and single-species-oriented fishery management are based on very different goals and considerations. Ecosystem management embraces preservation of biodiversity, maintenance of ecosystem structure and function, and broad-scale climatic considerations, whereas single-species management, in practice, is concerned with optimum exploitation of desirable species. Traditional management plans, in this case, involve social, economic, and biological aspects of fisheries but rarely consider the interspecific or physical processes that impinge upon them. A marked departure from this attitude was reflected in the passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act of 1996, which in effect linked the goals of sustainable fishery production and ecosystem preservation by making habitat a central issue in the management of fisheries. Because the act requires the protection and/or restoration of essential fish habitat, it links preservation of habitat with sustainable production of fishery resources and basically encourages the ecosystem approach to fishery management. Habitat is fundamentally important to fishery production because its loss can profoundly affect productivity (Dayton et al., 1995). Benthic trawling and dredging may be especially damaging (Jones, 1992; Kaiser, 1998; Pilskalin et al., 1998; Watling and Norse, 1998), but other practices, such as removal of apex predators (Goeden, 1982) and other ecologically important species (McClanahan et al., 1999), may have equally severe reper

Visions for Recreational Fishing Regulations

Abstract: We review sportfishing regulations in Minnesota and across North America and discuss potential visions for the future of sportfishing regulations. Creel limits are ubiquitous across North America and they have been generally set arbitrarily with little biological justification. Anglers may not accept reductions in creel limits that actually decrease total harvest. Length-based regulations are now common and most North American sport fish management agencies had numerous water-specific length-based regulations. The future of fishing regulations could continue to get more complex but there are substantial shortcomings to this future. We present four visions of the future of freshwater recreational fishing, and we pose the question “Does the fact we are managing a pleasure sport mean that we need to rethink our fisheries management philosophy?” Future management of sport fish may rely less on biology and more on social science as we learn to optimize angler satisfaction. Although biology should be t...

Paleocoastal marine fishing on the Pacific Coast of the Americas: perspectives from Daisy Cave, California.

Abstract: Analysis of over 27,000 fish bones from strata at Daisy Cave dated between about 11,500 and 8500 cal B.P. suggests that early Channel Islanders fished relatively intensively in a variety of habitats using a number of distinct technologies, including boats and the earliest evidence for hook-and-line fishing on the Pacific Coast of the Americas. The abundance of fish remains and fishing-related artifacts supports dietary reconstructions that suggest fish provided more than 50 percent of the edible meat represented in faunal samples from the early Holocene site strata. The abundance and economic importance of fish at Daisy Cave, unprecedented among early sites along the Pacific Coast of North America, suggest that early maritime capabilities on the Channel Islands were both more advanced and more variable than previously believed. When combined with a survey of fish remains from several other early Pacific Coast sites, these data suggest that early New World peoples effectively used watercraft, captured a diverse array of fish, and exploited a variety of marine habitats and resources.

The Collapse of the California Sardine Fishery What Have We learned

Abstract: For a number of years, Federal scientists, employed by an agency whose primary goal was to assist the development of the U.S. commercial fisheries, looked for causes, other than fishing, for the F’acZic sardine’s decline, while California State scientists, charged with the role of protector of the State’s resources, sought reasons to support the premise that ovefishing was having an effect. At the same time, scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography looked for fundamental generalizations in theory rather than the activities of man to explain changes in fish populations. For many years, California State personnel struggled without success to gain control over a burgeoning, and later declining sardine fishery. Faced with the possibility that legislation might be enacted, giving the California Fish and Game Commission control over the sardine fishery, the California fishing industry sponsored the formation of the Marine Research Committee to collect and disburse funds and to coordinate and sponsor more “needed” research, thereby forestalling any action to allow management of the fishery to come under the authority of the California Fish and Game Commission. Subsequently, the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) was formed, under which cooperative research proceeded. Oceanic conditions (temperature) was found to affect profoundly the distribution, year-class production, and yield of sardines. Nonintermingling or only partially intermingling stocks of sardines have been described. Considerable attention has been focused on the complementary role of sardines and anchovies as competing species acting as a single biomass while competing with each other as part of that biomass. Confirmation of this hypothesis was found to have been based on faulty interpretation of basic data. If such a relationship exists, it still needs to be demonstrated. Density-controlling mechanisms, however, which may be of greater importance, include predation, cannibalism, and other behavioral characteristics. Schooling behavior, for instance, which has evolved through natural selection to decrease mortality from predation, may work toward destruction of the prey species when it is confronted by a fishery which evolves more rapidly than does the species defense against it. A model that is consistent with the results of all the previous studies on the sardine must bring one to the conclusion that the present scarcity of sardines off the coast of California, and their absence off the northwest, is an inescapable climax, given the characteristics and magnitude of the fishery and the behavior and life history of the species.