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PART II (continue)

2. PLANNING (continue)

2.11 General Conclusions and Recommendations of the Hunter Report

(Scottish Salmon and Trout Fisheries. Dept. of Agr. and Fisheries for Scotland, August 1965, Cmnd. 2691, The Hunter Report)

343. We have set out in this report proposals which in our view will enable the Scottish salmon and trout fisheries to be used to the greatest advantage. The appointment of Area Boards, the establishment of the Scottish Anglers' Trust and the institution of the licensing and rating schemes which will contribute to their revenues, could be achieved in a relatively short time after the necessary legislation has been passed. The new administrative system, with the protection recommended for brown trout fisheries, can be expected to bring about a marked improvement in Scottish freshwater fisheries. The changes in the system of commercial salmon fishing will necessarily take longer but we hope that the commercial and research schemes which we have recommended will be started quickly, so that the discontinuance of salmon fishing in the sea, which in our view is essential for sound fisheries management, may take place with all practicable speed.

344. We summarise below our main findings and recommendations:

The Fish and their Life Histories (Chapter I)

  1. The homing of salmon and sea trout is an established fact and is the key to the proper management of salmon and sea trout fisheries (paragraph 12).

The Need for Regulation and Management (Chapter II)

  1. There seems every likelihood that salmon and trout will in future be exposed to greater hazards in Scottish waters (paragraph 40).

  2. If Scottish salmon fisheries are to produce the maximum benefit to the country, existing methods of regulation must be replaced by a system of management under which the right numbers of fish are caught in the ways which bring the greatest advantage (paragraph 44).

  3. The system of management should be capable of dividing the run of salmon in the required proportions between the commercial catch on one hand and the angling stock and breeding escapement; of measuring the effect of changes; and of allowing the commercial fisheries to operate efficiently (paragraphs 44, 45).

  4. Commercial salmon fishing should be permitted only by methods that allow the catch and escapement to be measured accurately in the river (paragraph 46).

  5. The new general principles of management of salmon fisheries apply also to sea trout (paragraph 48).

  6. Management of brown trout fisheries can be achieved by protection and regulation, allied to research and a system of administration (paragraph 49).

    Objectives (Chapter III)

  7. Commercial and sporting salmon fisheries should be given scope to develop, to the best extent that circumstances allow, the commercial catch being regulated to allow attractive angling (paragraph 56).

  8. Where salmon stocks can be increased by improved management, a rather greater emphasis should be placed on escapement for angling and breeding than on increasing the commercial catch (paragraph 57).

  9. Sea trout angling should be developed, but caution and flexibility are needed in the regulatory measures (paragraph 58).

  10. The objective for brown trout fisheries should be to provide ample angling available to the public at a price within the means of the ordinary angler. Although trout fishing for the market should not be an objective, there need be no bar to trout farming in specially constructed rearing stations (paragraphs 59, 61).

  11. Rainbow trout might be exploited as a sporting fish in selected waters (paragraph 62).

  12. Coarse fishing might be developed in appropriate areas (paragraph 63).

The Attainment of the Objectives (Chapter IV)

  1. As the full implementation of the management policy recommended requires that salmon fishing in the sea be prohibited, drift-net fishing should not be resumed, and coastal netting should be run down and eventually replaced by new methods (paragraph 66).

  2. We repeat that if inshore fishermen are found to be in need of additional support, there should be better ways of providing it than by allowing a relatively small number to engage for some of their time in salmon fishing (paragraph 70).

  3. The weekly close time is a haphazard way of regulating the escapement of salmon and sea trout, and should be replaced by direct counting of the runs of fish and by allowing the appropriate numbers to escape (paragraphs 81, 82).

  4. The commercial catch of a river should be made at a single point, preferably by a trap, or failing that, by a concentrated net fishery associated wherever possible with a counting device (paragraph 82).

  5. The change to new commercial fishing methods should be gradual and should begin with a commercial scheme and a research scheme (paragraph 87).

  6. Until experience has been gained from the commercial and research schemes, the change to single trap fishing should take place only where a substantial majority of the commercial interests concerned so desire (paragraph 90).

  7. Concentrated net fisheries should be regulated, at least initially, by some form of catch quota based on catches of previous seasons (paragraph 91).

  8. The introduction of single trap and concentrated net fisheries would be a change of method, and would not involve expropriation or wholesale change of ownership (paragraph 94).

  9. Net fishing should be licensed, with qualifying conditions related to operations during the seasons 1960 to 1964 (paragraph 95).

  10. A committee of licensed net fishermen and certain proprietors of net fishings of an existing Salmon Fishery District should prepare for publication a scheme for a single trap or concentrated net fishery for that District. After an inquiry into any objections, the Secretary of State would incorporate an approved scheme in an Order, and from that time the only legal methods of salmon fishing in the river system would be rod and line and the method stated in the Order (paragraphs 95–97).

  11. The regulations for controlling the catch of a single trap or concentrated net fishery would be stated in the Order, but the Secretary of State should have reasonable discretion to vary the total catch or the proportion of the run to be caught (paragraph 103).

  12. Area Boards should be responsible for enforcement of catch control of single trap and concentrated net fisheries (paragraph 104).

  13. If sufficient waters are open to visitors, salmon angling can make a material contribution to the Scottish economy (paragraph 105).

  14. Where the demand for salmon angling waters cannot be met by any form of voluntary arrangement, Area Boards should have power to apply for an Access Order. If certain requirements are satisfied, and after a public inquiry, the Secretary of State might by Order require that access be granted, subject to appropriate conditions (paragraphs 108–111).

  15. Fishing for brown trout without the appropriate permission should be made an offence (paragraph 114).

  16. A system of Access Orders should apply to brown trout fisheries as to salmon fisheries (paragraph 115).

  17. A co-operative of anglers called the Scottish Anglers' Trust should be established to administer and improve those angling waters which they come to control and generally to develop the sport of angling in Scotland (paragraphs 116, 117).

  18. Membership of the Scottish Anglers' Trust would be open to all, and the Trust would be concerned particularly with brown trout and sea trout angling. It would assist both visitors and local anglers (paragraphs 118, 119).

  19. Waters administered by the Scottish Anglers' Trust might include those of certain public bodies and of proprietors who are willing to admit the public provided they are relieved of the responsibility of organisation (paragraph 121).

  20. Registers of salmon, sea trout and brown trout fisheries should be compiled by Area Boards. Any brown trout fishery not registered by the owner would be registered in the name of the Scottish Anglers' Trust, who would then administer, but not own, the fishery (paragraphs 123–126).

2.12 Importance of Recreational Fishing in the United States

(From ORRRC Study Report 7; Sport Fishing - Today and Tomorrow)

Every year, more Americans look to the out-of-doors for recreation and enjoyment. Although there is wide variation among different types of use, the rate of increase in outdoor activities has averaged about 10 per cent per year over the past 10 years (1951 to 1960). This is six times faster than the population is growing. This characteristic of our way of living has high significance to public and private agencies that are responsible for the protection of natural resources and who must, at the same time, make them available for a wide variety of public uses.

On our natural areas, such as national forests, national wildlife refuges and public lakes and reservoirs, picnickers and sightseers make up about half of the total visitors, but where fishing is afforded it leads the participant or active sports on most such areas. On the national forests, nearly 18 per cent of the visitors are fishermen, while on the national wildlife refuges, about one-third of the visitors engage in fishing. The increase in numbers of fishermen over the period 1955 to 1960 has been at the rate of 4.3 per cent per year, which is 2½ times faster than the population of the Nation is increasing. This trend is expected to continue, although the difference in rates will probably become less in the next 40 years.

For many people fishing is a highly relaxing sport. The individual angler sets his own pace, generally seeks the kind of water he enjoys, and tries to catch the varieties of fish he likes best. Fishing in all its variations is fun, and a successful catch adds to the personal satisfaction experienced by most anglers. The therapeutic value of fishing has been demonstrated many times, with some of the best examples at our veterans hospitals where fishing is encouraged and many benefits are credited to the outdoor experience. This is especially true of hospitals treating patients with mental and nervous disorders, a condition of increasing occurrence in our present-day civilization.

The 1960 Survey of Fishing and Hunting conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife accounted for 25,300,000 persons, 12 years old and older, who went fishing at least once that year. These persons collectively fished an estimated 465,700,000 days in 1960. They represent 19.3 per cent of the population in this age group. Fishing is becoming more of a family sport, with 27 per cent of the anglers women and an unknown number of children under 12 years of age. Newsweek Magazine for 12 June 1961 reports fishing as the Nation's No. 1 sport.

Conclusions of the Study:

By the years 1976 and 2000, our population is estimated to increase by 30 per cent and by 98 per cent, respectively, over 1960 figures. Collectively, fishermen are expected to increase by 50 per cent by 1976 and 150 per cent by the year 2000. By 2000 the number of fisherman-days will be about 3 times what it was in 1960. In round figures, current trends indicate 63 million anglers will fish 1,300,000,000 days by 2000.

Can the streams, lakes and reservoirs of the Nation provide these anglers with a satisfactory level of fishing? In most parts of the country, fishermen will find some waters open to them within an hour's drive of their homes. More and better roads and highways, improved transportation and new waters in the form of impoundments will make this physically possible.

This report shows how the increase in fishing demand can be met with only slight reductions in the average catch. This can be accomplished in three principal ways:

  1. By adding new waters. The acreage of new impoundments proposed for construction by 1976 and 2000 cannot be forecast exactly, but is estimated to be 10 million acres, which is considered adequate to supply the acres of additional fishing waters required by the year 2000. This is a doubling of impounded waters now providing fishing. There will be problems created by unequal location of waters in relation to the distribution of human population. One-half of the new waters will be required by 1976 to meet anticipated fishing pressures, the second 5 million by 2000. This acreage will include half a million new farm and ranch ponds by 1976 and an additional million by 2000. All of these new waters must provide an estimated 100 million fisherman-days by 1976 and 277 million fisherman-days annually by 2000. New waters will supply about 34 per cent of the increase in fisherman-days beyond the 1960 level and expected by the year 2000.

  2. By better management of existing waters. Improvement of existing waters can be counted upon to increase freshwater fish production by an estimated 23 per cent by 1976 and 65 per cent by the year 2000. This can be accomplished through applying presently known management techniques and by using knowledge to be gained from research in the years immediately ahead. Better management, combined with the capacity of existing water to absorb more fishing pressures, will satisfy 30 per cent of the increased recreational fishing expected by 2000. The greatest improvement will come in the warm-water fisheries and result from such things as:

    1. Reduction in pollution load and prevention of new pollution.
    2. Better methods of controlling aquatic weeds and undesired and competing fish species.
    3. Improved hatchery stocks and stocking procedures.
    4. Public acceptance of species not presently utilized.
    5. New methods of regulating and managing reservoirs for maximum fish production.
    6. Opening of more existing waters to public fishing and provision of more adequate access to public fishing waters.
    7. Better information programmes to guide the fishermen.

    The increase in production traceable to improved management is expected to range up to 100 per cent for warm-water impoundments, including farm and ranch ponds. The rate of increase will be substantial, but less, on cold-water habitats since many of these presently appear to be receiving the maximum usage that can be provided without losing some of their attractivenes to anglers. This is especially true of readily accessible trout streams and some trout lakes.

    New opportunities are being developed for fishing in tailwaters below dans where large numbers of fishermen can be accommodated. Information from research projects just getting underway and from those planned for the future will contribute materially to the rise in management effectiveness and in benefits to the angler. Cold-water habitats now receive 25 per cent of the fishing pressure, warm-water habitats 75 per cent of the load. The latter will probably continue to gain in per cent of fishing supported.

  3. By more fishing in coastal waters. Continuing a trend first noted in 1955 and emphasized in the Bureau's 1960 Survey of Fishing and Hunting, the coastal waters will absorb an increased portion of the sport fishing effort. In 1960, this was about 17 per cent of all fishing and is expected to rise to nearly 30 per cent by 2000. More than 80 million days were spent in fishing in coastal waters in 1960, and this number is expected to double by 1976 and increase to 4½ times by 2000. Marine waters are expected to absorb 36 per cent of the increased fishing pressure above 1960 levels, anticipated for the next 40 years. Marine waters can absorb this increase provided the estuaries are not damaged or rendered unfit as spawning and nursery grounds or the migration routes of anadromous and other species blocked by man-made structures. More fishermen taking the species inhabiting coastal waters means less fish per angler in the future and catches from inshore waters may decline somewhat from the present high levels. The capacity of the open oceans to produce recreational fishing based on our present knowledge is almost boundless. Increase of fishing in the oceans depends on the availability of marinas, fishing craft, access points and money which anglers will have at their disposal.

There are problems to be overcome in both fresh and marine waters, calling on many scientific, political and social fields. Siltation and pollution must be prevented and controlled more effectively where they are presently a serious condition, as for example in our large rivers and estuaries. Present research on sport fisheries must be expanded and new projects started to provide information needed for improved management. The problem of getting more adequate funds for all sport fishery programmes will become even more pressing in the future and must be solved. Action programmes must be developed to meet these new demands which seem certain to come. The goals can be met if the public is made aware of their importance and the individual citisen can foresee benefits in terms of improved outdoor recreation.

2.13 Key Values in Outdoor Recreation Planning

(SFI. bul. No. 178, September 1966)

The sight of large numbers of people tramping over wild landscape, probably out fishing and hunting and, in the process, doubtless also bird-watching, picnicking and sightseeing, is rather disturbing to an isolationist minority within conservation who want to know that the resources are there but do not want them disturbed. These resource isolationists also include in their number those who abhor the harvesting of nature's abundant annual surpluses of fish and game, yet who ignore or are ignorant of the harmful effects on fish and game from overcrowding, undernourishment, disease, etc.

Conservation Broader than Mere Preservation. By contrast, the majority of conservationists believe, no less strongly, that wise utilisation of renewable natural resources is the proper course for conservation. Utilization in this sense considers that controlled use of soil, water, timber, grass, fish and wildlife is beneficial in terms of fulfilling people's needs. This philosophy envisions programmes aimed at producing continuous high yields of fish, game, timber, etc., and regards resources management as a means to assure continuous supplies for continued use in the future. It therefore includes selected resource isolation when needed to assure desirable preservation of scarce, especially sensitive, or endangered resources.

This conflict between the philosophies of resources isolation and resource utilization may well be the overriding conservation issue of the sixties. However troublesome these facts may be, “conservation” means different things to different people, and irreversible changes are modifying the physical and social features of America.

Obviously, America is vastly different now than when the pilgrims first set foot on Plymouth Rock. With increasing population, it can neither be returned to wilderness nor prevented from changing further. Nevertheless, some folk, anachronisms in twentieth-century America, have apparently dedicated their energies to belligerent opposition to all change. The bulldozer, the engineer and the contractor have been identified as the Philistine; in many instances the citizenry itself is regarded as the barbarian horde.

Ill-Conceived Stress on “Simple Pleasured” Damaging. Because of this philosphical schism, concern has been voiced that the conservation movement has become divided as to objectives. Such division appears to have been the regrettable fall-out from a general lack of discrimination that has accompanied the recent “new look” emphasis in outdoor recreation. Unfortunately, the highly significant findings of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission have been badly misinterpreted, even misrepresented. As a result, much misdirected stress has been placed on the so-called “simple pleasures” of driving, walking, picnicking and sightseeing as making up the central thrust of outdoor recreation.

The creation of the U.S. Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, followed quickly by the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, seems to have confused many conservationists. This is because these events have emphasized the superficial at the expense of the fundamental aspects of conservation. The newly focused spectre of millions of picnickers, hikers, motor vehicles, posypluckers, sight-seers, etc., invading and endangering the sanctity of painfully safeguarded Natural Temples, often very sensitive to human influence, has come as a traumatic shock to the preservationists and terrorised them. This is the cause of the cleavage as to objectives that has dismayed some conservation leaders.

Until comparatively recently, conservation in America has featured a series of rather panicky movements, leap-frogging from crisis to crisis in last-ditch efforts to fence off and isolate remnants of specific scarce resources threatened with final destruction. Thus, emotionalism has provided the principal fuel for rearguard actions that have characterised much of conservation in recent decades. As a result, the erroneous notion has become firmly implanted in many minds that “preservation” - in the sense of isolation - is synonymous with “conservation”. It should now become recognized that “preservation” is only part of a more nature conservation philosophy.

The distinguished former chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Laurance Rockefeller, correctly commented, recently, that “unswerving hostility to development condemns the conservationists to a rearguard action,” a defeatist course. Recognising that many more houses, bridges, highways, etc., are going to be built, Mr. Rockefeller stated that “the important question is not if, but how”.

Conversely, the equally valid demand by conservationists for water pollution abatement has generally been greeted with the rebuttal: “What do you want, jobs or fish?” The correct answer, according to Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie, was and is: “Both”. This noted Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution has done all Americans a great service by putting the “new look” of conservation in proper context, viz: “The preservation of America's natural beauty really boils down to proper resource development and use”. In these words, he has distilled the essence of the President's unprecedented congressional “Message on Natural Beauty”, dated 8 February 1965.

Misrepresentation of Outdoor Recreation Data-Confusing. The main problem seems to be one of confusion resulting from misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the data and findings in several key ORRRC Study Reports. These data concern participation by Americans in various outdoor recreation activities and the high degree of interdependence among them. This has led to a seriously mistaken notion by newly attracted generalists that driving and walking for pleasure, picnicking, sightseeing, etc., have suddenly displaced fishing and hunting as the principal outdoor pursuits by Americans. Equally mistaken; they seem to believe that the naive magic of providing X-numbers of picnic tables and litter barrels, etc., will solve the myriad problems that have so long confounded resources specialists! The only trouble with this simplified approach to resource conservation is that it just doesn't do the job. It begins with erroneous assumptions based on misinterpretation of complex or questionable data, and proceeds to illogical and incorrect conclusions.

Close examination of recreation data, indeed, makes it increasingly clear that the substantial (if not principal) thrust of several “recreation activities”, particularly the relatively passive picnicking, driving and walking for pleasures, are ancillary to more dominant traditional outdoor interests. If so, it would be a major blunder to deemphasize the role of fishing and hunting in outdoor recreation. On the contrary, it is necessary to reemphasize the traditional outdoor sports as constituting key values in outdoor recreation planning.

Some 68 million individual Americans of all ages and inclinations probably engaged in fishing and hunting last year, at least occasionally. Of these, about 47 millions apparently fished and hunted more or less regularly as the principal means of satisfying their outdoor recreational needs. Indeed, according to Study Report 20 of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, about 38 per cent of American adults (18 years or older) fish regularly and 17 per cent hunt regularly as means of relaxation. Over half of all hunters are known to fish as well as hunt. Therefore, excluding duplication, a net 46 per cent of American adults fish and/or hunt.

Swimming, unfortunately combined with “going to the beach”, is loosely (and perhaps erroneously) credited with similar popularity (45 per cent participation). It is at least possible that “going to the beach”, per se, may be as closely related to picnicking as to swimming, thereby leaving actual swimming participation very much obscured. Similarly, upon close examination, so-called “driving for pleasure” turns out actually to have been analysed in terms of the quite different concept of “automobile riding for sightseeing and relaxation”, credited with 69 per cent adult participation. Boating and canoeing was credited with participation by 28 per cent of adults, biking 19 per cent, camping 15 per cent, nature and bird walks 14 per cent.

Traditional Outdoor Sports Play Key Recreational Role. It appears that the two-thirds (66%) of American adults who were said to engage in picnics obviously do so, at least in substantial measure, as part of other recreational activities. In proper context, picnicking should probably be regarded, in large part, simply as a convenient method of eating while outdoors. Certainly, the primary role of picnicking as a major recreational objective remains subject to serious doubt.

A high degree of interdependence is apparent among various outdoor activities. Fishing and hunting, for example, are known to account for more than 80 per cent of boat use. Eighty-seven per cent of those camping indicated that fishing and hunting are their principal purposes in roughing it in sleeping bag, tent or trailer. The hiking factor in camping can be substantially accounted for by those remaining portions of fishing and hunting not done from boats. Similarly, one-third of hikers using wilderness areas indicated that their main objective was fishing; 75 per cent cited it among several goals of wilderness trips. To a highly significant extent, nature and bird walks may also prove largely incidental to these same objectives.

Quite naturally, the vast majority (90 per cent or so) of all compers found it necessary to drive cars in order to reach their campsites, unquestionably “sightseeing” en route and in vicinity and also “picnicked” in order to eat inexpensively during the trip away from home. How else could most of them have eaten after their arrival - or gotten where they were going (except for minor use of horses)? Thus, camping mostly boils down to being a convenient and inexpensive means of accommodating outdoor needs for room and board, in substantial measure for the purpose of fishing and hunting. Rather obviously, too, the majority of campsites must generally be reached by “going to the beach” - the waterside location universally recognized as the common recreational site.

Such reinterpretations are very strongly justified by other generally overlooked or ignored data to be found in the ORRRC Study Report 20. Those data, especially those measuring spontaneous mentions of leisure time activities, afford provocative insights into factors affecting outdoor recreation demand among American adults. The study team, itself, stressed the great importance and significance of these particular findings. The report authors concluded, as a result of comparisons between the two classes of data: “Among the outdoor activities, swimming, hunting and especially fishing seem to be of the greatest importance and salience”. Specifically, in the context of spontaneous mentions of “usual” leisure activities engaged in “quite a lot”, the relative frequency ratings may help to clarify the true relationships among various forms of outdoor recreation.

For example, a mere 6 per cent of American adults spontaneously included “pleasure driving” among their usual leisure activities - a far cry from the 69 per cent who indicated, under prompting, that they “drive for sightseeing and relaxation”. Similarly, only 1 per cent spontaneously included “going for walks”, 1 per cent “hiking”, 2 per cent “camping”, 3 per cent “boating and canoeing”. No spontaneous mention whatsover was made of “picnicking”. Neither was there any spontaneous inclusion of “nature or bird walks” among the “usual” outdoor recreation activities. More significantly, perhaps, 10 per cent spontaneously mentioned “outdoor swimming or going to a beach” as a “usual” leisure activity. Even more dramatic was the impressive 27 per cent who spontaneously listed fishing (18%) and hunting (9%) as their “usual” leisure activities.

Fishing and Hunting are Leading Outdoor Motivations. A comparison of the 1955 and 1960 national surveys of fishing and hunting reveals that the habitual (“substantial”) anglers and hunters had increased by 22.2 per cent over the five-year interval - a 4.0 per cent average annual rate of increase, well over twice the rate of additions to the population itself: Findings of a third such survey, covering 1965, will extend or modify this recent trend when available a few months hence.

As already noted, the ORRRC findings reveal that 46 per cent of the adult population actively engage in fishing and hunting. It was also found that there is a substantial backlog of unsatisfied nationwide pent-up demand for outdoor recreation. For one thing, large numbers of people who presently participate in these activities want to do so more often. For another, substantial added numbers of people who do not now participate would like to take up these activities anew. The chief deterrents appeared to be: (1) lack of time (for the activity itself or for the trip necessary to reach suitable facilities); (2) lack of available facilities (irrespective of distance); or (3) lack of money (for expensive equipment, distant travel, etc.).

Specifically, about 25 per cent of the population indicated that they would like to fish and hunt more often than they do now (15%) or take up fishing and hunting as new activities (10%). Thus, well over half the population (56%) evidently have a strong interest in recreational fishing and hunting. By comparison, unsatisfied demand represented 14 per cent for swimming and going to the beach, 13 per cent for camping, 11 per cent for boating and canceing, 10 per cent for picnicking, 5 per cent for hiking and 4 per cent for nature and bird walks.

It is strongly indicated by these data, on a nationwide basis, that fishing and hunting are, by all odds, the most important motivations (or satisfying activities) for Americans seeking outdoor recreation. It is also clearly evident that there are vast pent-up unsatisfied demands for fishing and hunting that eclipse all other recognized forms of outdoor recreation. Coupled with increasing population, this would seem more than adequate to create a deep sense of urgency for long-range fish and wildlife planning designed to accommodate these key outdoor recreation values.

It seems rather clear, from the two national surveys of fishing and hunting thus far, that increasing urbanisation is a factor working against participation in these outdoor pursuits. For example, as the country becomes less rural, availability of readily accessible waters or of unpolluted, or of well-managed fishing waters dwindles steadily. In other words, it becomes more difficult to go fishing. Similarly, it becomes more difficult to find a place to hunt. Actually, this is a characteristic of outdoor recreation, generally. In addition, urbanisation brings an increase in the quantity and availability of indoor recreation activities or sedentary forms of entertainment. These compete strenuously with the traditionally rural kinds of outdoor recreation for use of leisure time by urbanites.

2.14 Liberalized Fishing -Again

(SFI bul. No. 161, April 1965)

Effects of regulations governing fishing for various species of fishes, in terms of changes in the fish populations, was the subject of a panel discussion at a recent Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A need for specific definitions on the exact meaning of such terms as “liberalized fishing” was stressed as well. As we see it, however, liberalized fishing is a general term that simply means the relaxation of arbitrarily restrictive fishing regulations. The latter may apply to season limits, size limits, or bag limits.

In Virginia, according to fish chief Robert W. Martin, there were “no beneficial effects from closed seasons on warmwater fish species, either harvestwise or condition of the fish populations…”. Total fishing pressure seemed to be the governing factor rather than time of harvest in determining annual catch rate. In Martin's opinion, “research to improve regulation offers the greatest potential return for the fish administrator's dollar because of the wide application of findings in this field and the low cost of implementation”.

Studies on three Michigan lakes by fishery biologist Mercer H. Patriarche, showed that closed seasons had no measurable beneficial effect on northern pike and walleye populations. Neither did their removal adversely affect the quality of summer angling for bass, bass spawning or bass harvests. Harvests were not reduced by removal of length limits. Neither did increasing bass limits from 10 to 16 inches and northern pike limits from 14 to 24 inches, result in a build-up of predatory fishes or in improved growth by associated pan fishes.

On the other hand, New York fishery biologist William Shepherd suggested that closed seasons, length limits, and bag limits may have been responsible for the restoration of the Chautauqua Lake muskellunge population. He advanced the further opinion that it was these same restrictions that have been successful in maintaining the recorded high level of harvest for this highly specialized species.

In a review of 1963 fishing regulations for all states, Sport Fishing Institute noted a marked nationwide trend toward liberalised fishing (summarized in its “Fish Conservation Highlights” 1960–1962). Thus, there is much less evidence, today, of over-regulation than existed in the unenlightened pre-World War II period of traditionally restrictive sport fishing. The northeast fishery panel concerned itself chiefly with effects of regulations upon the composition of fish populations themselves, not upon angling opportunity. The effect upon the latter has been to increase very substantially the number of angling days supportable by warmwater fish populations - and obviously without demonstrated harm to the resource!

Effects of introducing largemouth bass in northeastern waters, principally with respect to the effects upon populations of the native chain pickerel, were also discussed. In this respect, New Jersey's Bruce Pyle suggested that increased nutrients, which cause greater turbidity and fewer aquatic weeds, may favour largemouth bass in some pickerel waters where they have been introduced.

Maine fishery biologist Robert Foye argued that introductions of largemouth bass in 109 lakes (102,255 acres) that originally contained chain pickerel had rarely resulted in their decline. He said on the contrary, that “good fishing” prevails for both species in some waters. Nevertheless, he noted that any further introduction of base into additional lakes in Maine is presently considered undesirable.

2.15 North American Fish Policy

(SFI bul. No. 156, November 1964)

The American Fisheries Society, after broad considerations, has adopted the following policy to aid in the protection, management and scientific development of the fishery resources for the greatest possible use and enjoyment by the people of this Continent (1964). The policy embraces both recreational and commercial fisheries in both fresh and marine waters, including those for molluska, crustaceans, reptiles and marine mammals. An objective is to promote and advance the development and application of all branches of fishery science and practice, including aquatic biology, engineering, economics, fish culture, limnology, oceanography and technology.

Article I. Jurisdiction of Fisheries. Constitutional responsibility for fisheries varies among North American Nations; therefore, jurisdiction within each will have its own ruling. Specific internal problems should be under the jurisdiction of the state or province concerned; national problems or those involving joint waters should be handed by joint federal and (or) interstate or interprovincial agreement as authorized by the constitutions concerned. International problems are best solved by international joint commissions with adequate research and regulatory powers.

Article II. Administration. Administration of fisheries should be non-partisan and by individuals trained and experienced in scientific management in this field. Adequate civil service protection is essential for effective research and to permit objective recommendations and implementing management.

For maximum effectiveness the agency charged with the administration of fisheries should have full authority to establish and enforce regulations.

Because of the wide economic and social benefits from sport and commercial fisheries, costs of their development and management should not be solely the responsibility of licensed anglers and commercial fishermen. Part of the cost should be borne by general fund appropriations, taxes on industries which profit directly from fisheries, or from other sources of revenue.

Public access to sport fisheries is of paramount importance. Whether by ownership or constitutional right, such access should be preserved and expanded.

When conflicts between fisheries arise, settlement should depend upon the pertinent facts in each case. Many waters will support several types of fisheries to their mutual benefit. Where actual competition exists, the basis for proper regulations should be objective appraisal of public benefits.

Article III. Research. Progressive management requires maximum factual information obtainable through an adequate research programme.

Article IV. Fish Culture. As the oldest and one of the most important approaches to the extension and increase of fish production for food and recreation, this activity needs greater support for current efforts to modernize its practices. Important strides have been made in the study and control of hatchery diseases and in fish nutrition. Some outstanding advances have also occurred in genetical studies and in the development of improved strains of trout for stocking, but these approaches, especially research in population genetics, must be expanded to include important commercial as well as sports species. In production for stocking primary emphasis should be placed on quality rather than quantity. For recreational fishing it is recognized that fish stocked should be equal or superior to native fish in form, colour, longevity, and fighting quality.

Article V. Management. Protective and catch-restrictive regulations based upon continuous or periodic assessment of stocks and catches and predictions of recruitment, as well as fishing pressure, direct population manipulation by reduction or by stocking, habitat protection and improvement, and provision for access to fishing areas are the presently recognized tools for management of sport and commercial fisheries. Of these most important is protection of the habitat, including fish food organisms, from pollution by domestic and industrial wastes.

Regulations should be as few as possible and limited to those essential for the protection of the fisheries and for the orderly management of the fish stocks. Uniformity of regulations on contiguous waters is desirable to avoid confusion but must not be an aim in itself if there is sound reason for variation. All regulations should be clearly stated and adequately publicized. They should provide for the removal of the harvestable surplus at the most desirable size and in the best condition for sport or food.

Population manipulation by stocking or through chemical means or otherwise should be used to change levels of abundance of various sizes and species only where it can be demonstrated that improved production of desirable species will result. In either operation the possible effects upon native fauna of the area, especially upon rare or endangered species, should be considered.

Public agencies should manipulate both the habitat, the fish populations, and regulate the harvest so that natural production will maintain good sport. Providing that those who benefit pay for the cost, it is legitimate management to plant catchable fish in waters where natural reproduction is inadequate and where environmental improvement is not feasible. Private agencies should be encouraged to provide “put and take” fishing through fee fishing waters. Increasingly the goal of the sport fisherman on public waters must be recreation rather than a full creel.

Habitat improvement increases natural yields and provides more fishing places by: construction of impoundments managed for fish production, pollution control, soil conservation, barrier removal, addition of pools, shelter or fish-concentration devices, improvement of temperatures, food and spawning facilities, and the reduction of noxious vegetation. Where the need has been demonstrated, the construction and operation of fish passage or fish screening devices and water control structures will improve fishing. The ideal approach is coordinated and complete management from headwaters of the watershed to the edge of the Continental Shelf.

Perpetual access for public fishing on both inland and coastal waters, including sufficient frontage to assure full utilisation of fishery resources should be acquired and developed by the various governmental agencies. Fishing piers and artificial reefs should be constructed and bridges, jetties and other artificial or natural features should be modified as needed to increase fishing opportunities.

Article VI. Multiple Use of Waters. Fishery resources are too important to be disregarded in any water development project. Throughout much of North America the growing scarcity of water precludes any single-purpose development. Plans to use or control water for irrigation, flood control, power production, water supply, industrial cooling, conveyance of wastes, or any other public purpose should include development and maintenance of the fisheries as a co-equal objective and should be part of the project cost. Whenever an agency plans any development that will impair either the quantity or quality of water available for fish life, mitigation of fish loss should be the financial responsibility of the sponsoring agency.

In river basin development the need to maintain representative natural areas must be recognised for scientific and cultural values. Protection is also essential for key areas for fishes, such as spring sources of trout streams, marsh spawning areas for northern pike, and coastal estuaries vital to the reproduction of marine species.

All organizations concerned should cooperate in conducting research on the effects and possible improvement of waste disposal and other water uses which may impair the value of water for industry, public water supply, maintenance of aquatic life resources and recreation.

Population growth and increased demand for water for all purposes are bringing about heavy competition and conflict in its uses. Management of water areas requires adjustments and compromises in development and operation to assure maximum public benefits for fishing as well as for other types of outdoor recreation.

Increasing competition and interference among various forms of water-based recreation require zoning or regulation of hours of use so that maximum opportunity for undisturbed recreational fishing will be on an equitable basis with competing water uses such as swimming, water-skiing and speed-boating.

Article VII. Education and Publicity. Progress in management of fisheries depends upon public understanding and acceptance of current and proposed programmes. They, in turn, are geared to biological and economic bases. Factual information on fisheries must be made available to the public in clear and acceptable form. Fishery workers everywhere should use all available methods of education. The adoption of uniform common names of fishes by the Society has been an important step in this direction. Wider use of the accepted names should be urged of fishery administrators, scientists, teachers, outdoor writers and the general public.

Fishery administrators should bring this policy to the attention of their governing bodies and the public and urge its adoption in order to strengthen their programmes and to further support the Society in its efforts to protect and develop the fishery resources of the Continent.

2.16 Outdoor Recreation Essays

(SFI bul. No. 133, December 1962)

In an effort to define the factors which underlie and account for changes in outdoor recreation demand, the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission asked a number of social scientists to express their views on probable future trends. The many variables involved render strictly statistical survey projections precarious at best, and reliable inferences drawn by specialists in cultural and social fields were needed to complement the statistical approach. The essays appear in ORRRC Study Report 22, “Trends in American Living and Outdoor Recreation” ($1.25, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington 25, D.C.).

Ethnologist Margaret Mead wrote on the history of American cultural values and predicted that in the coming space age a reassessment of man's place within the world's ecology will be required. She observed that Americans have been willing to face a problem of conservation only when it is defined as restoration or as a means of warding off disaster. To gain support for a programme of conservation, she believes that it is necessary to phrase the need in terms of an emergency which only immediate positive action can meet.

Our most immediate need is for recreation areas within and peripheral to metropolitan areas, Dr. Mead concluded. For example, “the extent to which Americans can become boat-minded as well as car-minded and make use of water as they now make use of roads and land space is in the long run dependent on the extent to which waterways and shore-lines are included within the framework of planning for recreation space, particularly in the vicinity of metropolitan agglomerations…”.

Foremost among the developments which are profoundly affecting American life are postwar resurgent population growth and the accelerated rate of urbanization. University of Chicago sociology professor Philip M. Hauser studied these trends in relation to ORRRC survey findings and found that population growth implies a great increase in aggregate future demand for outdoor recreation facilities and services. However, he deduced that greater metropolitanization contains the possibility of greatly decreased outdoor recreation demand per capita as one manifestation of man's adjustment to the urban environment.

In his essay, Hauser cites fishing as a “perfect” example of an activity in which increased urbanization reflects lower rates of participation, ranging from 20 per cent participation of those living in cities of one million or more inhabitants to 35 per cent of rural farm persons. The population research specialist concludes that the greatest need can be met by increasing the “user-oriented” and “intermediate” types of recreation land within, or adjacent to, the urban environment itself. Urban renewal and highway construction programmes in densely populated areas provide rare opportunities to expand needed facilities. Pond and small lake construction could be provided for in these projects.

In analyzing the multitude of agencies, policies and activities in the outdoor recreation field, political scientist Morton Grodzins concludes that there is virtue in the apparent chaos. The existence of many governments operating freely in a single programme area preserves a desirable openness in the system, he states. “There is little chance in the foreseeable future of providing too much recreation land, especially since recreation, as a political issue, does not sustain widespread public attention.” Orodzine recommends a federal programme of grants to the states, increased recreational use of Forest Service and BIM lands, larger purchases of land around new Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs, and establishment of state outdoor recreation consultant services to aid counties and cities in planning, acquisition and operation of properties.

In a final essay in ORRRC Study Report 22, University of Pennaylvania professor Herbert J. Gans argues that satisfying leisure behaviour is necessary - but not sufficient - for mental health and that it is best satisfied by providing those recreation facilities that are now in use and demand. He writes (emphasis added), “…the metropolitan areas of our country will need a much larger number of parks … located near man-made or natural bodies of water, and they should offer nature's beauty as well as some of the conveniences usually associated with resorts… As I read the available studies of ‘open space’ use, the demand for these facilities and activities is quite small. What most people seem to want most urgently is not communion with nature, but the opportunity for individual and family activity of a not too strenuous or too primitive nature which can be conducted outdoors”.

2.17 Pennsylvania Fishing and Highways

(SFI bul. No. 137, April 1963)

Big Fishing Creek, Clinton County, Pennsylvania, and the adjacent Lamar Federal Hatchery are in imminent danger of complete destruction by an ill-considered routing of the proposed Keystone Shortway - unless the Pennsylvania Department of Highways quickly recognises the overriding public interest involved, and employs an alternate route. For our part, we are hopefully optimistic that the responsible public officials and highway engineers of Pennsylvania will prove in the last analysis to be fully as enlightened and alert to the vitally important need to protect remaining precious recreational resources as did their professional counterparts in Vermont, recently.

In the latter state the administration and engineers ultimately recognized the validity and depth of public concern over the detrimental effects of a proposal for the belt line highway around Manchester to be constructed in the valley of the famed Batten Kill trout stream. They selected an alternate route lying east of the abandoned Rutland Railroad that would avoid irreparable damage to that uniquely valuable natural trout stream. Surely, when the chips are down and the final decision taken, the Pennsylvania highway folk will prove to possess no less a measure of bureaucratic statesmanship…

An alternate route for the Keystone Shortway is available outside the valley of Big Fishing Creek; it would add about $2,000,000 to highway construction costs. This is the reason for the hesitancy over rerouting - even though, as we understand it, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads can approve additional costs incurred by states for designing federal-aid highways (as in this case) to prevent damage to significant resources such as this. Unfortunately, compartmentalised shortsighted thinking of this very sort is widely prevalent among highway people.

For this reason, the 88th Congress of the United States will consider a bill (S. 468) introduced by Senators Lee Metcalf and Frank Moss, to amend Title 23 of the U.S. Code relating to highways in order to give needed protection to fish, wildlife and other recreation resources. They would require approval by the Secretary of the Interior of surveys, plans, specifications and estimates for projects on the federal-aid highway systems. Senator Metcalf has explained: “Of course we all want good roads. They are being built. But I am alarmed by the destruction of an irreplaceable resource, sport fishing streams, by road routing and construction.”

Big Fishing Creek is one of the most productive natural trout streams in Pennsylvania and the entire Eastern U.S. as well. It is also one of the few remaining unspoiled limestone streams. As such it is both especially precious and especially sensitive to the destructive forces of construction activity. Located in the limestone-sink country, itself fed by a large underground source, there is serious danger that a single dynamite blast might cause the very water source to entirely disappear. Should this happen, 18 miles of extremely valuable and irreplaceable “blueribbon” trout fishing stream would be lost forever. Moreover, the largest federal hatchery in the East would also be destroyed with the loss of the water it must have.

An intensive biological study of Big Fishing Creek was undertaken jointly in 1962 by fishery biologists of the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the Pennsylvania Fish Commission, with assistance from the fishery staff of the Pennsylvania State University, to more fully evaluate the threatened fishery resource. The study confirmed that few, if any, eastern trout streams approach Big Fishing Creek in basic productivity and naturally sustained trout yields.

It was found, for example, that optimum trout temperatures prevail the year round and that an ideal pool-riffle ratio (about 1 to 1) exists. It possesses water chemistry, cover and food producing areas of that superior and rare quality needed to maintain a large trout population of all size classes. More than 200 pounds of fish are present per acre from Tylersville to Lamar, of which over 91 pounds are trout! At the end of the 1962 fishing season there remained about 248 legal trout per surface acre of water or 1,133 legal trout per mile. These were “peaked” on top of approximately 10,000 sublegal trout immediately available to provide replacements as the large trout are removed by fishing or natural mortality.

A census of the fishing indicated that angling use averaged about 10 anglers per day per mile of stream throughout a 140-day legal trouting season over the 18 affected miles - 25,200 man-days of angling for the season. Such fishing has been shown to generate not less than $3.00 of daily expenditures by local anglers alone. Assuming (conservatively) that most anglers originated locally, that amount of fishing activity generates local expenditures for needed goods and services amounting to not less than $75,600 annually. A capital investment of at least $1,890,000 would be required to yield a like return (4% interest rate). Providently, however, the creation of Big Fishing Creek resource required no such investment, being a God-given, perpetually renewable resource if properly conserved.

The Lamar National Fish Hatchery, also dependent upon the water and springs of Big Fishing Creek, represents about $900,000 worth of construction to date. Planned additional capital expenditures of $750,000 are in abeyance, pending the outcome of the highway controversy. This extensive facility provides an annual local payroll amounting to $62,000 - equal to the annual yield from a capital investment, at 4 per cent interest rate, amounting to $1,550,000 (very close to the total actual and planned capital costs of the hatchery to initiate and complete it - $1,650,000).

The official statement presented by the U.S. Interior Department representative at last year's public hearing on the Keystone Shortway, at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, stressed the extreme sensitivity of the area's limestone structure to explosive shock and the resultant economic loss at the hatchery from disruption of the water supply. It also emphasized the deleterious effects otherwise upon water temperatures, productivity and water volume of Big Fishing Creek waters to be expected from channelization, loss of shade and mechanical preparation of the road bed.

Altogether, then, the measurable capital loss in dollars from construction of the Keystone Shortway along Big Fishing Creek would be - conservatively - at least $3,440,000. The trout fishery, if properly protected, was found adequate to support very substantially increased fishing (which would doubtless develop in ensuing decades). Therefore, the capital value of the fishery resource is considerably greater in fact than estimated here - unquestionably double, perhaps even triple. Thus, it would appear to be a very bad bargain, the very essence of false economy, for the people or the administration of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to sacrifice a capital asset probably worth some $5,000,000 or more in order to avoid $2,000,000 in added cost of constructing the Keystone Shortway along an alternate route outside the valley of Big Fishing Creek. This is to say nothing of the immeasurable value of increasing thousands of truly priceless recreational fishing days, rarely matchable now in the East, let alone Pennsylvania.

2.18 Recreation Area Criteria

(SFI bul. No. 139, June 1963)

President Kennedy's Cabinet-level Recreation Advisory Council (Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall, Chairman) recently set criteria for and endorsed establishment of a system of National Recreation Areas. The Council's Policy Circular No. 1 defines the criteria for selecting the new areas, in turn designed to help meet mounting national needs and demands for outdoor recreation. The system will include “areas of above average natural endowments but with less significance than unique scenic and historic elements of the National Parks and National Forests”. National Recreation Areas are to include areas formerly proposed as National Seashores, Lakeshores, Riverways, Waterways and Recreation Demonstration Areas.

The primary criteria set forth by the Council for judging the merits of proposals for such areas include:

  1. Spaciousness - National Recreation Areas should include not less than 20,000 acres of land and water surface, except along riverways, narrow coastal strips, or areas where population density within a 250-mile radius is in excess of 30 million people.

  2. High carrying capacity - National Recreation Areas should be located and designed to serve large numbers of people, in relation to type of recreation offered.

  3. Interstate use - National Recreation Areas should provide recreation opportunities significant enough to assure interstate patronage within the region of service, and should attract patronage from outside the normal service region.

  4. Require Federal involvement - The scale of investment, development and operational responsibility should be sufficiently high to require either direct Federal involvement or substantial Federal participation to assure optimum public benefit.

  5. Accessibility - National Recreation Areas should be located not more than 250 miles and preferably closer to the urban population centres they are designed to serve. They should be readily accessible at all times.

  6. Outdoor recreation dominant - Outdoor recreation is recognized as the dominant or primary resource management purpose of National Recreation Areas. If natural resources in addition to the recreation facilities are utilized, such use should be compatible with the recreation mission, and under no conditions significantly detrimental.

  7. Needs not met by other programmes - National Recreation Areas should be established only in areas where other programmes, Federal or non-Federal, will not fulfill high priority recreation needs in the foreseeable future.

2.19 Recreation Benefits from Water Pollution Control

(Stevens, Joe B., Univ. of California, Berkeley, Calif., 1966. Water Resources Research. 2(2):167–82. SFA 8884)

A methodology for estimating direct recreational benefits from water pollution control was developed through a model of biological and behavioural relationships involved in sports angling. A biological production function was envisaged between inputs of angling effort and the output, or yields, of fish taken. The marginal product, angling success per unit of effort, was taken to represent the ‘quality’ of the recreational experience. Water pollution would cause deteriorations in dissolved oxygen, temperature, or toxicity characteristics of the water, thus shifting the production function downward and causing reductions in angling success, angling effort and recreational value of the fishery. Demand equations and ‘success-effort’ elasticities were estimated for three estuarial sports fisheries, and the methodology was illustrated by means of an assumed reduction in angling success. The direct recreational benefits were identified as the consumer surplus that would result from the prevention of water pollution. (Auth.)

2.20 Sport Fishing Economics

(SFI bul. No. 164, July 1965)

In recognition of the growing importance in Canada of that country's rapidly expanding sport fishing, a symposium on “The Economic Aspects of Sport Fishing” was held recently in Ottawa. The discussions pointed up the need for increased efforts to gain more fundamental knowledge about sport fishing and its impact upon the economy. The symposium was summarized in the December 1964–January 1965 issue of “Trade News” (Department of Fisheries, Ottawa).

Deputy Minister of Fisheries Dr. A.W.H. Needler opened the discussions by pointing out that fish stocks are sometimes more valuable to the community when used for sport fishing rather than for traditional commercial purposes. Dr. Marion Clawson (Resources for the Future, Inc., Washington, D.C.) predicted that a period of “mass fishing” may well be immediately ahead. Fishery management emphasis may then need to become more people-oriented. This would result in imposing new and different burdens on researchers and managers alike.

A consensus was reached that resolutions of conflicts between competing interests must consider the economic significance of sport fishing as well as that of other interests. However, there was no general agreement concerning the best method for measuring the economic value of sport fishing. Universal licensing of all sport fishermen was recognized as one possible means of establishing a sound sampling base needed for conducting studies of sport fishing economics.

Economic implications in the related field of oceanographic research are considered in National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council Publication 1228, “Economic Benefits from Oceanographic Research”. Federal support of oceanographic research has increased from $ 24 million in 1958 to $ 124 million in 1963. Support is expected to increase to $ 138 million in 1965 and reach $ 350 million by 1972.

As pointed out by Oceanography Committee Chairman Milner B. Schaefer, the potential benefits to be expected from these expenditures must be evaluated. The report compares future economic benefits that could result from oceanographic research with the cost of doing the research. It is estimated that a continuing national investment in oceanography of $ 165 million per year will result in savings of nearly three billion dollars per year plus added production worth almost as much. Marine recreation, including sport fishing, is an important area of oceanographic research.

Reconciliation of conflicts between recreational and other uses of inshore areas is recognized as an urgent national problem. Development of such facilities as small boat harbors, breakwaters, sandy beaches and concentrations of sport fishes is also urgently needed. The demand for marine recreational facilities is so great that ways must be found to “stretch” the shoreline. Gross annual expenditure for recreational use of the sea is at least $ 2 billion per year. It is estimated to be growing by at least 5 per cent a year.

Interestingly, the benefit/cost ratio (estimated net benefit/related research expenditures) for nearshore recreation of 8.1 greatly exceeds that for any other category. It is almost double the average for all areas of research, including weather forecasting, commercial fisheries, marine industry, shipping and sewage disposal. Not only are oceanographic research expenditures well justified, the great merit of investing in marine recreational research (in which the sport fisheries are major elements) is convincingly demonstrated.

This informative publication is available from the Printing and Publishing Office, National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council, Washington, D.C. 20418, for $2.00 per copy.

2.21 Sport Fishing in Man-Made Lakes

(Stroud, R.H.: American Experience in Recreational Use of Artificial Waters, pp. 189–200, in Man-Made Lakes, edited by R.H. Lowe-McConnell, Academic Press, 1966)

Stroud describes, with very impressive facts, the role of water and sport fishing as the focal point of recreation. The general extent of reservoir fishing constitutes about one-third of the surface acreage of U.S.A. inland waters, exclusive of Alaska and the Great Lakes. The warmwater species predominate (18 per cent) and the average angler's harvest from large reservoirs in 1960 was about 15.7 lb per acre in warmwater areas and 9.0 lb in coldwater reservoirs. The average sport catch per angler-day is estimated to be 1.1 lb in coldwater and 1.5 lb in warmwater reservoirs. In 1963 the large reservoirs produced about 10 fishing days per acre which is one-quarter of all angling effort on inland fresh waters.

To meet the predicted demand in 1976 (from 1960), the large reservoirs will take an 85 per cent increase in angling, 5 million new acres of impoundments will be constructed, and to maintain fishing success near the present level warmwater fish creeled from reservoirs must be increased 30 per cent, which means about 21 lb per acre instead of 15.7 lb.

The role of farm ponds is rather large. In 1959, 4 per cent of all angling was performed in the 200,000 farm ponds, stocked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The principles of fish population dynamics developed at Auburn University on warmwater species combinations have been used with success.

Small reservoirs (10–500 acres) are used to a large degree in sport fishing. Well-managed lakes, in Alabama for instance, are known to produce 100 or more man-days of angling per acre annually and annual catches of 173 lb per acre.

The Burke Lake project is interesting. A management model was developed with year-round fishing and multiple use of the resource. There were 440 fishing trips per acre of water surface, complementary activities were usual, activity with the family was high and no use friction was apparent.

Lakes like this can support several times as much fishing as do unmanaged or extensively managed natural lakes.

The large reservoirs give a similar picture to the small ones. The multiple recreational use is dominant in management just as year-round use when possible.

Stroud names three main problems associated with recreational use of man-made lakes: (1) inadequate access; (2) conflicts with other recreational groups, mainly boating activities; and (3) inadequate knowledge of reservoir ecology for an improved management (see also 2.12). Water use conflicts can be severe with a free use of the lakes. Speed-boat racing and water-skiing have, in certain areas, produced “intolerable disturbances” to many anglers.

In order to protect anglers and not penalise these new forms of use, some form of soning can be used in terms of space (special area) or in terms of time (hours, days) or some possible combination of these. (Auth.)

2.22 The Fort Apache Indian Reservation Project

(Cit. from White, W.M.: The Economics of Sport Fisheries Management in Canad.Fish.Rep. No. 4, 1965)

In conclusion, I should like to recite, as an example of the potential benefits of an economically rationalized sport fishery, the development of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in our State of Arizona. Our Government has taken a particular interest in the economic betterment of the Indian and one of many means selected is the development of tribal recreational resources. The Division of Fishery Management Services of our Bureau is in the forefront of such activities. The 1.6-million-acre reservation in point contains about 50 per cent of Arisona's present trout stream mileage. Ten man-made impoundments were constructed to add about 935 surface acres of trout water. Thus the area can now provide a more significant portion of total fishing opportunity in this water-short State.

Permit fees charged to fishermen are designed to recover only the administrative costs of the tribal enterprise - the salaries of about ten people and certain expenses. Permit fees are set at 60 cents for the first day and 30 cents for additional consecutive days. However, the principal tribal benefits are derived from the $4.82 average daily expenditures by fishermen on the reservation for lodging, boat rental, gasoline and other items. The latter expenditures generate a gross revenue on the reservation of over $1 million annually. As a result of the fishery management effort this is expected to increase by 5 times and to provide direct employment for 250 tribal members by 1974. An additional $8 is estimated to be expended on an average by each of these fishermen while off the reservation, a substantial benefit to the State of Arisona.

What are the costs? Tribal capital investments to date are about $ 2 million of which approximately half has been for reservoir and access road construction. The balance has been expended for facilities to provide lodging, food and similar services. I assume that land costs may be considered to be negligible.

Net profits from the operation, exclusive of the costs of stocking (which has been a federal responsibility) are reported at 15 per cent per anmum, computed after appropriate deductions for depreciation of facilities and repayment of capital to the tribal treasury. Each facility is planned to return its capital investment within 20 years.

Calculated another way, a new capital investment of $ 2 million to be amortised at 6 per cent over 20 years would represent the equivalent of $170,000 annually. If the annual stocking rate of 80,000 pounds were costed at $1.50 per pound, or $120,000 and administrative costs of $44,000 were added, total annual costs would be $334,000. Trout fishing benefits would be calculated at a minimum of $2 per fisherman-day using the present schedule of administrative values. This would place 1964 fishing benefits at $584,000 which, compared to annual costs of $334,000, would indicate a benefit-cost ratio of 1.75, a highly favourable comparison. Other secondary and intangible values accrue to the tribal members which are not measured in this comparison. They have better fishing, better roads, better services and higher individual incomes than they would otherwise have.

Whether or not the tribal council has examined exhaustively the alternative possibilities for investment, I cannot say. But it is obvious, I believe, that they have not only selected an economic use for their funds but they have selected an enterprise well adapted to the historic affinity of their people for the out-of-doors. It provides wholesome employment for their people while exploiting a renewable resource of their lands.

We conclude that the methodology of applying economic analysis to sport fishery management is in its infancy. There will be many pitfalls during the period when specific techniques are being developed and tested. Until methodology is perfected, the results would provide a frail single reed for the planner. However, the necessity for rigorous justification of management measures seems to make it imperative that we develop these techniques as a support, though not as a sole criterion, for management decisions. As in any other phase of human activity, there will never be a complete substitute for good judgment which weighs the best economic, social and other factors that are available as a basis for decisions.

2.23 The Little Giant Again

(SFI bul. No. 140, July 1963)

In an address last March in Florida before the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, Thomas D. Rice, Special Assistant to the Commissioner, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, commented on the state of the commercial fishing industry and on some of its problems. He then went on to “talk turkey”, as it were, to the Commission members with respect to the growing marine giant - sport fishing. On this he commented as follows:-

"And now I should like to dwell for a few minutes on some matters that have bothered me somewhat over the past several years. I have been impressed with the fact that something is missing in our concern with fishery development of the Interior, the Coastal State Agencies and the Interstate Marine Fishery Commissions as between the Commercial and Recreational Fisheries.

"The lack of balance is reflected in great and reasonable concern with commercial fishery statistics and little or none with sport fish catches. It is reflected in the agendas of such meetings as this, where the vastly important shrimp resource is king and the vastly important sport fish resource is all but ignored. It is reflected in great and good research efforts for a few of the major commercial fishes and little or no effort for the major game fishes.

"What has brought this imbalance most sharply to my attention are the statistics of growth in numbers of salt water anglers and in the quantities and poundage of their catches all around the coasts. Most of this growth is recent and rapid. It has been reported in publications of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service, but it hasn't quite gotten through to us all that we're riding a wave of the future. We had better take account of it. We had better follow what's happening. We had better try to see clearly how we can take advantage of it to keep all our fisheries strong and growing in the face of threats from pollution, river and shore and marsh development and destruction.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Interstate Commissions are the custodians of valuable and imperiled resources of all Americans. What can we all do together to achieve the most productive, best balanced effort on behalf of these resources?

"Have you as state organisations exhausted all possibilities to increase your income through sale of marine sport fishing licenses? To your credit, you have done better on the Gulf Coast than other areas have, but more might be accomplished.

"Have you been able to devote as much time to your regulation of salt water sport fishery catches as to the regulation of freshwater fish catches? Do we have a balance between sport fishery regulations and commercial regulations? Have we worked together to get the facts necessary for the making of good rules for fishing?

"Have we worked as hard or as soon as we should have on the many proposals to dredge channels through fish spawning grounds and oyster beds and to change bayou outlets? We realise now that we began to study the Mississippi Gulf outlet problem almost too late.

"Have we worked well enough together on the complicated studies of water quality which will tell us whether the pesticides sprayed on the land will decimate our young fishes and our shellfish in estuarine areas?

“There is need for comprehensive planning to meet these problems whether they arise from domestic or international sources or whether we are interested in sport fish, commercial fish or any other inhabitants of our coastal waters. A body such as this, representing federal, state, industry and recreational interests, can, and I am sure will, provide a valuable and continuing service in this respect.”

2.24 The Whole Outdoor Recreation Experience

(Cit. from Clawson, M.: Economic Aspects of Sport Fishing in Canad.Fish.Rep. No. 4, 1965)

In my approach to outdoor recreation, I regard as basic the concept of the whole recreation experience. Almost every outdoor recreation experience includes five rather well-defined phases:

  1. Anticipation or planning. This takes place primarily before the family leaves home. It decides then such questions as where to go, when, what equipment to take and to buy, how much money to spend, how long to stay, and the like. As nearly as I can estimate for the United States, more than half of all expenditures for outdoor recreation take place during this phase. Heavy equipment such as autos, boats, motors, camping gear, and the like is mostly bought here. Some people plan their outdoor recreation carefully, on the basis of the best information available; others are haphazard, hasty or careless. If public agencies want to help people plan their outdoor recreation activities better, to increase their later satisfactions and to reduce their disappointments, I think this is the best stage to do so. Almost no public efforts are directed now to helping recreationists at this stage.

  2. Travel to the site. Most outdoor recreation requires travel from home to the recreation site. Often, more time and money are spent in this travel phase than are later spent on the site. We lack adequate information but there is reason to believe that for many people this phase is not particularly enjoyable - may even have a negative value. I think it possible that the enjoyability of this phase might be increased considerably.

  3. On site. This is the phase we most often think of, or talk about, when outdoor recreation is mentioned. Many different activities may take place, with different members of the family often doing different things. This is the phase which often gives point and direction to the whole experience, and it is the one by which we often describe the whole. But we should not fall into the error of regarding it as the totality.

  4. Travel back. The recreationist family obviously must return home; but its route often need not be the same. We suspect that its attitude is significantly different from the outgoing trip. It may well be that the family responds to different considerations on the two trips.

  5. Recollection. After the family returns home, it recalls its recreation experience. I have hasarded the judgement that more than half of the total satisfactions of the entire experience arise here. Stories are told to friends and neighbors, work associates and others; stories often reinforced with slides or artifacts of some kind. The recollection may differ considerably from the activity. Bigger fishes are caught or get away in the living room or office than on the lake or stream. Experiences unpleasant at the time such as drowning rain, may provide wonderful conversation fodder. The recollection experience gradually leads to planning the next experience and so the cycle begins again.

We must treat the whole experience as a package deal. Each part is essential to the whole. All the costs of the package must be balanced against all the satisfactions. The annoyance at a dirty restroom on route may offset the pleasure of a new museum in the park, for some people. In research, in economic analysis, in education of recreationists, in tourist promotion and in park or fisheries administration we must constantly be aware of the whole experience. In my judgment, many park or recreation resource administrators have been excessively preoccupied with the on-site phase of the whole experience. They could properly retort that this was their only responsibility, that they were not permitted or required to work off the site of their prime responsibility. But I think we must look at their role in a new light.

2.25 Trout Angling Effects

(SFI bul. No. 133, December 1962)

The effects of angling regulations on wild brook trout were studied during six continuous years at Lawrence Creek, Wisconsin, and are reported by fishery biologists Robert L. Hunt, Oscar M. Brynildson and James T. McFadden in Technical Bulletin Number 26 (Wisconsin Conservation Department, Madison 1). Lawrence Greek contains a dense population of wild brook trout and has a reputation for “good trout fishing”.

According to the report, three sets of regulations were evaluated: A 6-inch minimum size limit and bag limit of 10 (1955 season), no size limit and no bag limit (1956–57 season) and a 9-inch minimum size limit and bag limit of 5 (1958–60 seasons). The first two sets of regulations were much alike in their effect upon harvests. Few anglers were able to catch 10 or more wild brook trouts and few brook trouts less than 6 inches were kept, even when legal. Consequently, 1955, 1956 and 1957 harvests were largely unaffected by the presence or absence of regulations as liberal as a 6-inch limit and bag of 10.

When the minimum size limit was raised to 9 inches during the 1958–60 seasons, the catch was dramatically reduced, angling success indices declined, and fishing pressure declined. Simultaneously, the growth of trout declined and instances of higher-than-normal summer and winter mortality due to natural causes reduced the possibility of stockpiling enough two-year-old brook trout to provide a yield (in terms of both number and pounds) comparable to one which includes a significant percentage of one-year-old brook trout as well.

In Lawrence Creek enough yearling brook trout usually survived the fishing season to provide adequate reproduction regardless of the angling regulations. This was true even though it was found that the catches of brook trout in 1956 and 1957 represented 59 per cent and 65 per cent of the respective pre-season populations. Two-year-old brook trout seemed especially vulnerable to angling.

It was concluded that regulation of the harvest of wild brook trout from Wisconsin streams is both biologically sound and necessary to insure perpetuation of this fishery wherever sufficient angling activity exists. Minimum size limits were found to provide a more dependable method of controlling the harvest than bag limit restrictions.

Harvests made under a 9-inch limit showed much reduced rates of exploitation at all levels of fishing intensity and trout population density encountered. A minimum size limit adapted to the growth characteristios of the brook trout populations being managed would ameliorate angling mortality over a wide range of trout density and angling pressure.

2.26 What Is Recreation?

(SFI bul. No. 175, June 1966)

A provocative paper presented in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Annual Southeastern Park and Recreation Training Institute last February (by Hugh A. Johnson, leader of research in the economics of outdoor recreation with the USDA Economic Research Service), raised some very basic questions about “Research Needs in Outdoor Recreation”. His first expressed need concerned the very nature of outdoor recreation itself. He noted that recreation is not the outdoors, but our reaction to the outdoors.

Recreation was stated to be something a person does because he likes doing it and not because of some reward he might receive. Johnson urged that we dig deeper, arguing that, “We need to get into the root-concepts expressed in words like ethics, polity, philosophy, morals and mores, to use a few. We need answers to the basic question, ‘What's this all about? ’”.

Discussing “demand” for recreation opportunities, Johnson stated that our first great need is to “reexamine the reasons why we have parks and playgrounds and recreation administrators. Why are we concerned about preserving forests and waters and fish and wildlife? Why are we trying to provide recreation opportunities for the massing millions concentrating in our cities? ”

The demand for recreation opportunities in the out-of-doors has increased faster and further than the supplier's ability to provide the needed facilities and services. This insufficient supply is said to be attributable to six situations:

  1. Inability to accurately identify recreation needs.
  2. Inability to forecast recreation trends.
  3. Inability to secure adequate financing - public and private.
  4. Lack of knowledge of the significance of recreation.
  5. Inability to articulate the need for recreation.
  6. Lack of administrative, policy making, managerial and leadership competencies in recreation.

This temporary shortage of outdoor recreation facilities does not necessarily mean, said Johnson, that we should plan to devote more money for more large parks and forests and recreation areas. On the contrary, he suggested, research reflection may argus that such investments in extensive public holdings will not provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people at the lowest alternative cost.

One problem that Johnson stressed is to measure the “real” demand as contrasted to the expressed demand! Evidence seems to be mounting that recreationists must be studied as “complex, often irrational, changeable, different, interesting individuals”. Johnson also emphasized that overall estimates of recreation demand must be carefully analyzed for their true meaning. We need, he said, to develop better methods to determine how recreation users measure quality, how they adapt their recreation demands to the available resources, the conflicts in recreation uses, the economics of choice and many other aspects not usually brought out in user surveys or in enterprise analyses.

2.27 Year-Round Trouting

(SFI bul. No. 161, April 1965)

West Virginia has made a major change in its trout fishing regulations. Following the 1965 opening on 24 April, trout fishing will continue thereafter on a year-round basis. It is planned to secure comparative information on changes that may result in fishing effort, return to the creel of planted trout and any decrease or increase in truck following.

The only reason that trouting has been closed during the first four months of each year heretofore was to permit stocking of 50 per cent of the hatchery-reared trout stocks. The remaining 50 per cent are stocked in weekly allotments after opening day. The former pre-season stocking can also be divided into weekly plants from the time weather permits.

The State believes that its new policy of year-round trout fishing will offer these advantages:

  1. Makes use of at least two extra months of prime trout water - often the best stream conditions of the year.

  2. Gets away from opening day crowds that hinder fishing and detract from sport.

  3. Will allow a fuller use of hatcheries by providing more poundage of fish produced per unit space.

  4. Should draw more tourist trout anglers to the State for early spring fishing.

  5. Will allow a more reasonable use of facilities such as camping areas. Opening day crowds have exceeded what it is possible to provide in facilities in many areas.

  6. Will help to alleviate health problems associated with the overcrowding of areas.

  7. Will provide better fishing and more opportunities to West Virginia anglers.

  8. Should decrease total fishing pressure on native trout waters since most of this effort is associated with opening of the season.

2.28 Sport Fishing - Today and Tomorrow

(Recommendations) (From ORRRC Study Report 7)

The following items are regarded as the most significant needs of the recreational fisheries of the United States:

  1. The sport fisheries should receive wider recognition as a resource of national significance. This is particularly true when applied to the oceans, Great Lakes, waters on areas administered or developed with Federal funds and fisheries of interstate waters. This can be accomplished by furthering cooperation between Federal and State conservation agencies and by providing the public with more adequate information on fishery resources. The nationwide increase in vacation travel and the pleasure of fishing new waters have awakened a new and widespread public interest, which can best be met by expanded cooperative programmes. No one agency can do the job unaided.

  2. Provision of recreational fishing should be recognized as one phase of water-resources management, where all compatible uses are encouraged and developed. On some areas, such as national wildlife, refuges, military areas, national parks and watersupply reservoirs, there may be uses of higher significance than fishing; but fishing should be permitted and encouraged wherever it does not seriously interfere with essential uses. In several western States, sport fishing is still not recognised under State laws as a beneficial use of water. This situation can and should be corrected under public demand.

  3. There are three main problem areas in sport fishery management that must be given attention if the requirements of fishermen are to be met in 1976 and 2000:

    1. Greater provision for public access to all types of water, whether publicly or privately owned. This also involves parking facilities, boat ramps, sanitary facilities, even shelters and trails for public use. The States are aware of this need and with increased Federal assistance can go far toward meeting public-access requirements which are expected to expand from 2 to 4 times by 2000.

    2. Correction and prevention of damaging pollution and siltation in all waters, especially the larger rivers and estuaries. We are still losing inland water areas to pollution as fast as, or faster, than they are being improved. Siltation is a serious problem near urban developments and where outmoded agricultural practices are still prevalent. The estuaries are the spawning and nursery waters for many marine fisheries and must receive greater protection from pollution than at present, if they are to serve the needs of the Nation in the future.

    3. Improved financing. Financing of sport fishery programmes is generally inadequate at both State and Federal levels. Fisherman use is increasing faster than license revenues and much faster than Government appropriations for management of resources. The costs of salaries, equipment and construction items, meanwhile, have risen sharply. At the State level, the situation calls for increases in license revenues, including a marine sport fishing license and possible supplemental sources for new funds. For the needed Federal programmes, the money can come only through increased appropriations supplemented by reasonable user fees where appropriate. The improvement of existing fish habitats through available management techniques is entirely feasible, but will take money and personnel not presently employed.

  4. The need for more facts to guide the management of fishery resources is imperative. The most vital points on which knowledge is needed are as follows: (a) management of impounded waters, particularly the large reservoirs, (b) new and precise techniques for the control of fish species and fish habitats, to increase the production of desirable species; (c) more effective protective facilities for anadromous species, both upstream and downstream migrants; (d) better understanding of the effects of new pollutants, commercial poisons, detergents and radioactivity on aquatic life; and (e) knowledge of marine sport fisheries. Although significant progress in fishery research has been made by the States under the Dingell-Johnson programme over the past 10 years and by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since its reorganization in 1956, much needs to be done.

  5. Some areas of responsibility for sport fishing are not clear, especially in the marine waters. No single pattern of authority is followed and in 7 of the 23 coastal States, no State agency has primary responsibility in this field. Only a few coastal States have well-developed marine sport fishery programmes. The resource is of such vast local and national importance that this situation cannot continue to be overlooked. In some inland waters - on some military lands, certain national parks areas and unallotted public domain - management responsibilities have not been defined. These situations are of importance in a particular State and generally require legal examination and court ruling to set forth the lines of jurisdiction.

  6. Strong efforts must be taken to preserve and protect natural shorelines of large rivers, lakes, the ocean beaches, and the estuaries from physical damage and destruction. Dredging, filling, channeling and drainage are destroying irreplaceable wetland habitats, including spawning and nursery areas, along our coasts. Every possible measure must be taken to save these irreplaceable resources for the future.

  7. Waters affording fishing opportunities near large centers of population are one of the most critical needs of the fishing public. Legislation, both State and Federal, concerning purchase or preservation of lands within the areas of “urban sprawl” should include specific provisions for development of feasible impoundments for sport fishing and other recreational purposes. At every legislative opportunity for public works, such as youth corps, public land development and acquisition or land conservation measures, specific provisions for development of new waters near centers of population should be included as a benefit for present and future generations.

3. COMMERCIAL AND SPORT FISHING

3.1 Atlantic Salmon

(SFI bul. No. 186, July 1967)

The 1966–67 winter issue of “The Atlantic Salmon Journal” (Fredericton, N.B., Canada), contains reports from the Annual Conference of the Atlantic Salmon Association, last February is Montreal, plus other pertinent information. For example, data given for the Canadian catches of Atlantic salmon indicate that a total of 860,725 fish were taken in 1966. Of this total, some 366,699 were adult salmon and 494,026 were grilse. Angling accounted for 122,640 fish (34,614 adults and 88,026 grilse), while commercial fishermen harvested an estimated 738,085 fish (332,085 adults and 406,000 grilse - all from Newfoundland waters).

During the conference, the famed Miramichi River was acclaimed as “the world's greatest (Atlantic) salmon producing river”. A record 73,574 salmon were caught there by all means in 1966, attesting to its great significance to the world, not only to Canada.

It was brought out that salmon angling currently generates gross expenditures of some $8,000,000 annually in Canada's Eastern Provinces and Quebec at current levels of catch. It was noted in this connection that angling catches of salmon could easily be increased by more than 60 per cent “if they were available”. (Presumably, they could become available if the current high level of commercial fishing take were sufficiently restricted - perhaps on the order of onehalf.)

Commercial nets in 1966 brought less than one-third the revenue to these provinces ($2,500,000) from the exploitation of more than 5½ times as many fish. Thus, the value of salmon caught by angling averages about $65 per fish, compared to a value of only $3 per fish exploited commercially.

On this basis, it would be sound economics to restrict commercial fishing harvests to the point where the angling catch could be increased from 123,000 to the Association-suggested goal of 200,000 fish. We might assume that anglers' catches would average 20 per cent of available fish. On this basis - suggested by us rather than by the Association - some 385,000 fish would need to be reserved from current commercial harvests (a reduction by 52 per cent) to make possible an increased angler catch of 77,000 fish.

Applying value figures given by the Association, these additional fish caught by anglers would be worth over $5,000,000 in revenues to Canada. The 385,000 fish, necessarily reserved from the commercial catch to make such an increase in the angling catch possible, would otherwise be worth only $1,155,000 to the Canadian economy. Thus, the economy of the Eastern Provinces and Quebeo would benefit very handsomely from such an approach.

As T.B. Fraser, Manager of the Atlantic Salmon Association, put it with respect to the relative dollar values of salmon caught by angling vs. netting: “These figures need to be studied by some governments who still labour under the delusion that the commercial fishery for salmon is still the big revenue producer”.

3.2 Commercial Fishing

(Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries, Report of Committee on, London, May 1961, Reprinted 1964, Cmnd. 1350, The Bledisloe Report)

51. Before we went into the question of the control of commercial methods we considered whether we ought to recommend that all commercial fishing for salmon, trout, coarse fish and eels should be abolished and the entire stocks of these fish made available for exploitation by anglers for sport. There is no doubt that interest in angling has vastly increased of recent years and that the increase is continuing; anglers contribute greatly to the tourist industry and to the fishing tackle trade; some pay rates on sporting property to the local authorities in whose areas their waters lie and most contribute substantially to the funds of river boards through license duties. On the other hand, commercial fishing in England and Wales employs comparatively few people (2,000 as against some 560,000 salmon and trout anglers in 1958) and none of them is employed in the business all the time for there is a close season of at least five months; most of the fishing is done in public waters and there is, therefore, no contribution to local rates; and the amount of license duty paid by netamen is in only a few areas a noticeable contribution to the income of the river board. Nevertheless, salmon and sea trout are extremely valuable food fishes and though unfortunately we can hardly hope that they will ever be abundant enough to be an important item in the diet of the people of this country, they will always be much sought after. Economically they make a small but worthwhile contribution to our natural wealth. To many inshore fishing communities salmon or sea trout fishing is an essential part of their livelihood, for without it their income from other kinds of fishing, shellfish, sprats, pilchards or white fish, would not be sufficient to maintain them and their families and they would be lost to the fishing industry entirely. Finally, we are by no means satisfied that the amount of fish caught commercially in England and Wales is greater than the stocks can stand. The figurers in Appendix 3, moreover, suggest that the reduction or cessation of netting does not always result in strikingly better angling and we think that to abolish commercial fishing altogether would result in a substantial loss of good food without a countervailing advantage to the angler. We therefore recommend that commercial fishing should continue, although the methods now employed may well be susceptible of development and improvement.

52. Having reached this conclusion we have naturally given a good deal of attention to the control of commercial fishing to see whether we could devise methods which would safeguard the stock of fish and be fair to the angling interest but at the same time not hamper unnecessarily a lawful and desirable business. It is also important that control measures should be easy to operate and enforce.

53. A description of the commercial methods of fishing for salmon and trout which are now in use is given in Appendix 4. In the present Act the use of these methods of fishing is closely regulated by statute, not only as to times and places when they may be used, but also as to their actual method of operation. Thus nets must be of a certain minimum mesh (which can be varied by byelaw); two nets must not be used within one hundred yards of each other, nor across more than three-quarters of the width of the river; fixed engines were “frosen” as to number and situation by the decisions of the Special Commissioners of 1865, and even if by a change of the course of a river they have become useless they cannot be replaced.

3.3 Commercial Fishing Confab

(SFI bul. No. 164, July 1965)

Commercial fisheries of both the United States and Canada are lagging behind those of other nations. Reasons for this lag and measures for improving the U.S. competitive position in world fisheries were discussed during the “North American Fisheries Conference” at the Annual Meeting of the commercial fishing industry held recently in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Wilbert M. Chapman, Van Camp Foundation (San Diego, California), cited a mate of state regulations as contributing to the poor position of the North American nations in world fisheries. He stated that efficiency has been legislated out of the fisheries to protect the less efficient fishermen from the normal effects of competition.

Conflicts between sport and commercial fisheries were recognised as valid where there are limited quantities of particular stocks of fish. In such cases, Chapman stated, priorities must be established through research and that “the recreation use should have the priority” (emphasis added).

Establishment of overall quotas to be taken from the stocks each year was recommended by Chapman as a means of maintaining adequate spawning stocks. These quotas, he argued, should include a reasonable individual bag limit for sportmen with the food fishery permitted to take the remainder. (In a number of instances, it must be recognized, especially with respect to inshore stocks, there will not be any remainder for the commercial fishing industry to share.)

3.4 Fisheries Vs. Shell Dredging

(SFI bul. No. 184, May 1967)

Estuaries are among our most vital natural resources, being the situations where much of our coastal marine life originates. Nationwide, about 65 per cent of all our commercial fish and shellfish, and most marine sport fish species, inhabit estuaries during all or part of their life cycles. In Texas, the 333,000-acre Galveston Trinity East Bay estuarine complex has been reported to be the spawning and nursery grounds for 80 per cent of the total fisheries products taken from the Gulf of Mexico along the entire Texas coast. It is known, for example, that each acre of marine grass flats in the bays of Texas produces an annual crop of at least 20 redfish and at least 40 sea trouts.

The loss of Texas of the biological productivity of the Galveston estuary complex, from whatever cause, would be disastrous. Approximately 750,000 Texans currently engage in recreational fishing throughout Texas coastal waters. In the process, they catch (and presumably est) about 40,000,000 pounds of speckled trout, redfish, flounder, drum and shrimp annually. This fishing provides about 8,000,000 days annually of preferred outdoor recreation - an activity officially recognised to contribute importantly to the general public health. The 80 per cent of the fishing attributable to the biological productivity of the Galveston estuary complex amounts to 6,400,000 angler-days and 32,000,000 pounds of sport-caught fish.

Based on federally assigned dollar values for “net economic benefits” attributable to each recreational fishing day, the type of sport fishing involved there (at $3.00 per angler-day) generates “net economic benefits” to Texas amounting to some $19,200,000 annually. Added to the annual landed value ($25,622,000) of the commercial fishery products (116,000,000 pounds of finfish and shellfish) similarly depended upon this area, the total annual value derived from utilisation of the biological products that are directly dependent on this critical bay-estuary complex is about $44,822,000. This is a perpetual annual yield at present levels of resource husbandry, representing a capital value (4 per cent interest rate) for the biological productivity involved considerably exceeding one billion dollars (1,120,550,000)!

The U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries indicates that present commercial fishery harvests there could be increased immediately and sustained, with added fishing effort, by about 50 per cent. This means, in turn, that the annual value of presently available commercial production could be readily increased by about $12,811,000. This would raise the value of annually available commercial fishery products to the total of $38,433,000. (This does not take into account any potentital increases that might be obtained by intensive scientific management of shellfish resources).

The Bureau's estimate of presently available unharvested surplus, if valid, should apply across the board of biological productivity. If so, it is reasonable to assume that 50 per cent more sport fish could also be taken on a sustained basis, with increased effort, thus raising the latter to about 48,000,000 pounds.

The average catch of coastal saltwater fishes by Texas anglers is about 5 pounds per angler-day. This is several times the average daily catch that freshwater fishermen, including Texans, have gradually found acceptable. It, therefore, seems reasonable to expect that the increasing saltwater anglers, including Texans, will eventually find comparable levels of daily catches reasonably acceptable.

Assuming future average catch per angler-day in coastal salt waters of 2 pounds (would exceed current average daily freshwater catch rate), together with increased total harvest, at least three times as many angling days can easily be accommodated. Thus, the sport fishery resources that are dependent on the Galveston Trinity East Bay estuary could support a minimum of 24,000,000 angler-days. (This does not take into account any potential increase that might eventually be obtained through intensive scientific management of the resource.) The future “net economic benefits” (at $3.00 per angler-day) that are reasonably realizable from the Bay estuarine dependent sport fishery, then, would be approximately $72,000,000 annually.

Therefore, the anticipated total future annual value (conservative) that is reasonably derivable from various utilizations of the biological products, dependent in some critical way upon this important Bay estuarine complex, would amount to an estimated $110,433,000. The equivalent capital value (4 per cent interest rate) would be approximately $2,760,825,000. That value could be expected to increase substantially over the remainder of the century in direct proportion to the application of intensive scientific management to both the sport and commercial fisheries resources base.

The major factors affecting the biological productivity of the Bay estuary are essentially three-fold: (1) shelldredging for production of aggregate and of calcium; (2) pollution, both municipal and industrial, including siltation from dredging; and (3) dredge-and-fell operations for real estate development. The loss or degradation of such an important estuary from whatever cause, be it pollution or dreging for shell or dredging and filling for real estate development, can be very damaging to the economy and to fishery resource-dependent recreation. Losses due to pollution are subject, with cleanup, to eventual rehabilitation. However, losses due to dredging activities tend to be substantially permanent. All three factors apply in varying degree in this case, but current urgency surrounds the shelldredging problem.

By October 1963, three and a half years ago, the remaining supply of “exposed cyster beds” (no more than two feet of overburden) in the Galveston Trinity East Bay estuarine complex was about 120,000,000 cubic yards of recoverable shell. At that time, remaining exposed oyster beds were calculated to constitute a seven-year supply for industrial use as aggregate in road construction and/or chemical extraction of calcium. By late March 1967, it had presumably been reduced to one-half of that estimated quantity, with commensurate reduction in capital value (at an average $2.00 a yard at dockside) - to some $120,000,000, or about $34,000,000 annually over the ensuing 3½ years. This is considerably less than the “net economic benefit” from utilization of the fishery resource that is dependent on this area.

After 3½ more years of exploitation, when the shell becomes exhausted in the fall of 1970, its industrial value will have fallen to sero. As an associated consequence, the biological productivity would be damaged, as well, and the recreational and commercial fisheries would decline accordingly. On the other hand, if the shell deposits should be left intact, the fisheries would be able to continue, undiminished, to serve many millions of Texans indefinitely into the distant future. Fully dredged out, only relatively small numbers of Texans can be served for less than the span of a single current generation.

It would appear to be the height of folly for the State of Texas to permit the loss of another acre of exposed oyster shell to such purpose in the Galveston Trinity East Bay estuarine complex. It would be particularly wasteful and tragic in view of the known availability of huge limestone deposits, at relatively short-haul distance inland, as an alternative source of the raw materials needed for industrial aggregate and calcium. It is recognized that this new source would be somewhat more costly than the shell deposits, due to increased transportation and processing expense associated with its substitute exploitation. Eventually, of course, it will necessarily be substituted on a permanent basis as the shall resource becomes exhausted.

It turns out, on examination, that the cost differential for crushed limestone delivered at dockside in Galveston, as an alternative to shell, is about 58 cents per ton. Since a yard of shall weighs slightly more than a ton, the added cost of furnishing the substitute limestone for the remaining 120, 000, 000 cubic yards of shell (somewhat less than 130, 000, 000 tons) as the raw material for its various industrial uses would be about $75, 400, 000.

The capital value of presently harvested biological products (at current levels of partial utilization), dependent for their existence in some way on the Bay estuary's biological productivity, is about 15 times as much as the cost differential incurred by use of the alternative source of materials. On the basis of reasonably anticipated future use (conservative since it ignores further increases due to intensive scientific management of those resources, likely to occur in the future), the perpetually renewable biological resource would be worth well over 36 times the differential in cost due to use of the alternative source of limestone aggregate and calcium: Expressed another way, a decline in the biological productivity of this vital Bay estuary amounting to considerably less than 5 per cent would result in a loss in overall capital value of the dependent fishery resources by an amount that would exceed the capital value of the current remaining supply of exposed oyster shell (used for the customary industrial purposes).

Although it can be shown that estuarine-dependent fishery resources have high values in comparison with other estuarine-related values, although an acre of estuary can be demonstrated to be worth considerably more when properly managed for its optimum sustained biological productivity than when exploited for other uses, the real issue is not a matter of comparative economics. In the final analysis, the overriding issue comes down to an increasingly urgent fundamental moral question. That question is, whether permanently destructive exploitation of irreplaceable estuarine areas for the generations of short-term private financial gains will be permitted - or whether these biologically critical brackish water areas will be so managed as to assure optimum sustained yields of useful aquatic life for the generation of continuing multiple public benefits for many centuries to come. The latter course preserves for future decision a maximum array of desirable options; the former course permanently narrows the range of future choice by irreversibly foreclosing upon important options now.

3.5 Fish Harvest

(SFI bul. No. 138, May 1963)

According to statistics revealed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. commercial fish (food fish and industrial fish combined) and shellfish catch for 1962 amounted to 5.2 billion pounds. This near-record catch had the record value of $ 385 million at dockside. As we understand it, the ultimate retail value of the edible fishery products served on the table approximates 3.3 times as much as their wholesale value. Industrial fish, mostly menhaden, made up over 51 per cent of the total catch. Other fishes and shellfishes not utilised to any appreciable extent by anglers made up well over 10 per cent.

Something under 39 per cent of the commercial catch - about two billion pounds, or less - represent species of fish in which sport fishermen have a strong community of interest with commercial fishermen. The mutuality of interest is of course much greater for some species than for others but angling interest in most of them is expanding at a very rapid rate.

For example, the Special Study Report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC Study Report 7) on “Sport Fishing Today and Tomorrow” estimated that the 1960 angling catch of saltwater sport fish came to about 565 million pounds: This estimate - equivalent to nearly 30 per cent of the corresponding commercial catch - was derived by multiplying the average catch per man-day of angling (as estimated from a review of a number of scientifically conducted angler-catch studies) by the number of man-days of angling devoted to saltwater sport fishing (as established by the U.S. Bureau of the Census study). To catch these fish, some 6.3 million anglers spent about $ 626 million - representing an ultimate retail value amounting to about $1.10 per pound of sport-caught fish!

3.6 Studies of Irish Angling and Commercial Fisheries

A series of studies has been prepared during the past few years by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Tourist Board in Ireland (personal communication).

One study “Analysis of Returns Received from Fisherman engaged in Commercial Fishing for Salmon and Sea Trout (1966)” (mimeo 1968) gives detailed information, for example, of the number of fishermen employed (4,365), total quantity of salmon captured (2,326,000 lb) and sea trout (86,000 lb); (total value about £700,000); nets and boats used, average time devoted to this type of fishing each season (mean approx. 20 weeks per engine and 36 hours per week) and average net income per man per week fishing (mean approx. £4.6 with a deviation from £2.14.Od for snap nets to £6.3.6d for bag nets).

Another study “Analysis for Returns of Expenditure Incurred by persons licensed to fish for Salmon and Trout by means of Rod and Line” (mimeo 1967) outlines, for example, the following figures for 1966: Number of licenses issued (12,052) estimated total expenditure £490,146, estimated total expenditure on hotels and travelling (£223,356) and estimated total value of catch by rod and line of £118,873.

A third study “Return of Angling Visitors from outside the State 1957–1966” (mimeo 1967) records an impressive upward trend, for example, of the number of visitors from 11,900 in 1957/58 to 106,700 in 1966/67 and a change during the same years in the total visitors' expenditure from £285,500 to £3,757,000. These figures include game fishing (59%), coarse fishing (23%) and sea fishing (18%). The increase in expenditure during these 10 years is approximately ten-fold for game fishing and twenty-fold for coarse and sea fishing.


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