Long-term participation in collaborative fisheries research improves angler opinions on marine protected areas

Erica T Mason; Allison N Kellum; Jennifer A Chiu; Grant T Waltz; Samantha Murray; Dean E Wendt; Richard M Starr; Brice X Semmens

doi:10.7717/peerj.10146

Long-term participation in collaborative fisheries research improves angler opinions on marine protected areas

PeerJ. 2020 Oct 28:8:e10146. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10146. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Erica T Mason¹, Allison N Kellum¹, Jennifer A Chiu², Grant T Waltz³, Samantha Murray¹, Dean E Wendt³, Richard M Starr², Brice X Semmens¹

Affiliations

¹ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
² Fisheries and Conservation Biology, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, CA, USA.
³ Department of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA.

Abstract

Recent marine spatial planning efforts, including the management and monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs), increasingly focus on the importance of stakeholder engagement. For nearly 15 years, the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP) has partnered volunteer anglers with researchers, the fishing industry, and resource managers to monitor groundfishes in California's network of MPAs. While the program has succeeded in generating sustained biological observations, we know little about volunteer angler demography or the impact of participation on their perceptions and opinions on fisheries data or MPAs. In this study we surveyed CCFRP volunteers to learn about (a) volunteer angler demographics and attitudes toward groundfish management and stock health, (b) volunteer angler motivations for joining and staying in the program, and (c) whether participation in the program influenced volunteer angler opinions on the quality of fisheries data used in resource management and the establishment of MPAs in California. CCFRP volunteers were older and had higher fishing avidity than average within the California recreational angling community. Many self-identified as more conservation-minded than their peers in the recreational fishing community and had positive views of California groundfish management and stock health. Participation in science and giving back to fisheries resources were major motivating factors in their decision to become and remain CCFRP volunteers. Angler opinions toward MPAs were more positive after volunteering with CCFRP. Those who had volunteered for seven or more years with CCFRP were more likely than not to gain a positive opinion of MPAs. Our survey results provide evidence that long-term engagement of stakeholders in collaborative research positively influences stakeholder opinions regarding marine resource management, and highlights CCFRP's success in engaging citizen science stakeholders in collaborative fisheries research.

Keywords: Angler perceptions; Angler surveys; Citizen science; Collaborative fisheries research; Cooperative research; Fisheries data quality; Marine Life Protection Act; Marine protected areas; Participatory science; Stakeholder engagement.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a NOAA Fisheries Quantitative Ecology and Socioeconomics Training (QUEST) Program grant to Brice Semmens. There was no additional external funding received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.