Monitoring of recreational fishing of seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) in France: output from a dual methodology (telephone survey and diary)

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1 Not to be cited without prior reference to the author ICES CM 2010/R: 05 Monitoring of recreational fishing of seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) in France: output from a dual methodology (telephone survey and diary) Herfaut J., Levrel H., Drogou M. et Véron G. Johanna Herfaut, Ifremer Brest Department of Maritime Economy Technopole Brest Iroise BP Plouzané (+33) johanna.herfaut@ifremer.fr Mickael Drogou, Ifremer Brest Laboratory of Halieutic Biology Technopole Brest Iroise BP Plouzané (+33) Mickael.Drogou@ifremer.fr Harold Levrel Ifremer Brest Department of Maritime Economy Technopole Brest Iroise BP Plouzané (+33) harold.levrel@ifremer.fr Gérard Véron Ifremer Brest Laboratory of Halieutic Biology Technopole Brest Iroise BP Plouzané (+33) Gerard.Veron@ifremer.fr Abstract The first national survey on recreational fishing in France (2006 to 2008) revealed that seabass was the main target species for recreational fishers. At the same time, the Data Collection Framework required that EU member states monitor catches of seabass. Therefore, in 2009, a new study has been launched to monitor seabass recreational fishing more accurately. The method used was based firstly on a telephone survey conducted in the coastal departments of facades of English Channel, North Sea and Atlantic. The national databases enabled us to extrapolate results to other departments and to obtain assessment at a national scale. Secondly, the telephone survey gave us the opportunity to recruit volunteer fishers. These fishermen complete diaries with accurate description of their fishing trips: caught species, weights, sizes, locations (based on ICES sub-areas) and times of fishing are detailed. Diaries are returned every 3 months (or every 20 outings) during a period of one year to monitor all fishing seasons. Both sources of information are then combined to produce estimation of catches and meet the requirements of the DCF. The coupling of these two surveys is achieved through ten types of recreational fishers. These types have been defined previously through the frequency of fishing (number of outings) and the mode of fishing (angling, spear fishing ). The main goal of this dual methodology was to supply both representative and accurate data on recreational fishing. We will present in this communication the results obtained from it and what are the main problems we faced. Keywords: recreational fishing, telephone survey, logbook, seabass, catch assessment 1

2 Introduction Since the European Council regulation n 1543/2000 of June 2000, every member state has to collect and produce data from marine recreational fishing. These data mainly deal with the biology of fish stocks, the fleets and their activity (Pawson et al. 2008). According to Appendix XI of the Commission regulation n 1581/2004 in August 2004, catches of recreational fishery must be reported for the Baltic salmon, North Sea cod, Atlantic seabass, Mediterranean blue fin tuna and eel. Next year sharks and rays will also be included in the EU requirements (ICES 2009). The impact of recreational fishing is not negligible (Lloret et al. 2008). But in France everybody can fish as leisure activities without any license. Recreational fishermen have to respect few rules (minimal size of capture, number of fishing tackles, fishing season, do not sale their catch ). But indeed, the management and the control of recreational fishery are very low. Some local studies on recreational fisheries, often focussed on a specific species (Peronnet et al. 2003, Véron and Appéré 2004, Morizur 2004, Laspougeas 2007), have been made but none results could be extrapolated to the whole country since (Herfaut et al. 2008) when a pilot study on marine recreational fishing was conducted in France by Ifremer under the umbrella of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and its Directorate for marine fisheries and aquaculture (DPMA) and with the help of a specialized institute in opinion poll (BVA). The method was inspired by US survey design (van Voorhees et al. 2002, NOAA 2006). But in our case, it took into account all fishing modes (shellfish and crustacean gathering, angling from, boat fishing, spearfishing) and all species. It was organized in two phases: a telephone survey during the first year and an on-site survey the next year. The telephone survey was screening survey that can estimate the number of fishermen and identify their practice. The on-site was to clarify the catch data: species, yields... This study has done an initial point on this activity. She also highlighted the importance of the seabass fishery in France. This is the main species sought and caught. In 2005, the total catch was estimated at 5,000 tons, or almost the same volume as the commercial fisheries. Then in , a new survey focused on the bass fishery has been implemented. The aim of this new survey is to get better precision about seabass recreational fishing and also to test a new monitoring system (maybe for a future long-term monitoring). Then new design is a little different. This is a telephone survey associated with a panel of fishermen who perform diary. To link the two surveys we used an a priori classification made by expert, because a posteriori classification made by multivariable analysis showed is limits in the previous national survey and is not that efficient. Extrapolations are made classes by classes that are considered as subpopulation. This objective of this paper is to present the protocol adopted for this study and the preliminary results (telephone survey and first panel data). The paper is structured as follows: section 1 presents the overall methodology and section 2 presents the first results obtained. Material and Methods Telephone survey Sample design For the telephone survey, a Random Digit Dial (RDD) frame was used. Only coastal departments (French administrative divisions) of English Channel and Atlantic coast were sampled. The statistical unit is the household because that is cheaper than personal survey. When there were several recreational fishers, only one was randomly selected to be interviewed. The interviews were carried out with the computer-assisted telephone interviewing system (CATI) used by the poll institute BVA. The answers were directly enter in the database during the phone interview. 2

3 A questionnaire was built specifically to interview seabass recreational fishermen. This questionnaire contained different sections: - Part A: Introduction and filters to identify recreational fishermen in the household; - Part B: Global seabass fishing activity during the previous year (fishing modes, gear, number of fishing trips ); - Part C: Identification sheet with socio-demographic information (age, profession ). The survey was spread out over two waves of interviews in June and November Each wave referred to a period of one complete year (Table 1). Table 1 : Number of interviews by wave and department for the telephone survey Number of interviews Wave 1 Number of interviews Wave 1 Total Calvados Charente-Maritime Côtes-d'Armor Eure Finistère Gironde Ille-et-Vilaine Landes Loire-Atlantique Manche Morbihan Nord Pas-de-Calais Pyrénées-Atlantiques Seine-Maritime Somme Vendée Total The sampling plan was also constructed taking consideration of the dwelling location and sociodemographic criteria of the households. The aim of the survey was to contact a representative sample of English Channel and Atlantic coastal departments population. But only fishermen aged over 15 were interviewed because of statistical legislation. Then the data needs adjustments (by weighting system) to get a representative sample and make extrapolation at a national scale. Telephone data corrections and adjustments Database is compiled on the software SPSS. To ensure representativeness of the sample at the scale of the French population, taking into account the sampling design as well as deviations observed between the sample and the population regarding socio-demographic characteristics, a set of weighting factors was applied to the sample data. The individual weights were calculated by iterative proportional fitting. This is a procedure implemented by the National Statistics Institute (INSEE) and it is called Generalized Calibration Procedure (Macro CALMAR) (Le Guennec and Sautory 2002). The weights were based on the observed characteristics of the household in terms of residence zone, sex, age, socio-professional group, size of household. An adjustment of the weight of individual responses was also necessary to account the varying number of fishermen in different households. We only sample the coastal zone. Then to extrapolate to the entire French population aged 15+, we used the proportion of coastal and inland seabass fishermen obtained in the previous survey. For this calculi we stratified the sample by frequency (number of fishing trips per year) and by fishing mode. 3

4 Diary survey At the end of the telephone survey questionnaire, fishermen were asked if they agreed to participate to a panel. If they did, they received a package with a meter, a spring balance, a species identification guide and diary (Annexe 1). In the diary, they indicated for each trip the fishing mode, the gear, the fishing time and detailed their catch (species, weight, length). They will return the diary after a 3 months period or after 20 trips (a diary can record only 20 trips) and get a new one. They also have the possibility to enter their information via an internet data entry form. Before each return, the poll institute give to the fishermen a reminder call to increase the response rate. The diarists are managed in 3 groups. The collection of diary will be made from July 2009 to December It is still under progress and the results presented in the next part are not complete yet. Some fishermen also agreed to be followed by individual pollsters. They will be phone frequently: each month or each week depending on their frequency of practice. This test is done to compare the response rate between classic diary and phone-diary (Lyle et al. 2010). Combination of the both survey To combine the data of the two surveys, a classification was design a priori by experts. The first criterion is the frequency (number of fishing trips per year) and the second is the fishing mode (Table 2). Then each class is considered as a sub-population of fishermen and all extrapolations are done by class. Table 2: Classification design to combine the two surveys Frequency Occasional fishers (between 1 and 3 trips per year) Fishing mode On shore fishers Off shore fishers (from boat) Off shore spear fishers (boat) Regular fishers ((between 4 and 15 trips per year) On shore spear fishers On shore anglers Off shore anglers (f rom boat) Off shore spear fishers (boat) Very regular fishers (More than 15 trips per year) On shore spear fishers On shore anglers Off shore anglers (f rom boat) 4

5 Results Telephone screening survey Penetration rate A total of households were interviewed. Among them, 467 fishermen were identified. Individual penetration rate = Number of seabass recreational fishermen over 15 in the sample Number of person over 15 in the sample The individual penetration rate is 2%. That means that 2% of the population aged 15 years and has catch at least a seabass during the last twelve months on the Atlantic, English Channel or North Sea seaboards. The estimated number of seabass fishermen in the coastal zone is then fishers. Extrapolated to the entire France is represented seabass 378,500 fishermen. The proportion of fishermen over 15 years old fluctuated significantly in the investigated territory (Figure 1): it was in Brittany and in the department of Manche that observed penetration rates are higher. The departments that had the lower penetration rates are located in northern France (North and Somme), also because this is not a very appropriated zone for seabass fishing. 1,4% 1,1% 0,9% 0,9% 4,5% 1,0% 1,4% 4,2% 2,2% 1,9% 2,9% 2,0% 2,4% 2,6% 1,9% 1,8% 1,2% Figure 1: Percent of fishermen in the sample of households by departments The distribution of seabass fishermen in our classification is presented in Table 3. The most important classes are the regular fishermen fishing from shore (21%) and the regular fishermen fishing from boat (19%). Very regular fishermen represent 35% of the total and occasional 19%. 5

6 Tableau 3 : Estimation of the total number of fishermen and percent of each class (base: 467 fishers) Number of fishers Pourcentage Occasional fishers (between 1 and 3 trips per year) On shore fishers % Off shore fishers (from boat) % Off shore spear fishers (boat) % Regular fishers ((between 4 and 15 trips per year) On shore spear fishers % On shore anglers % Off shore anglers (from boat) % Off shore spear fishers (boat) % Very regular fishers (More than 15 trips per year) On shore spear fishers % On shore anglers % Off shore anglers (from boat) % Fishing practices description Two fishing modes were dominant: fishing from boat (46% of first citation) and fishing from shore (43% of first citation) (Figure 2). Nearly 30% of fishermen have cited several modes used during the last twelve months. From boat 46% 11% 57% From shore 43% 14% 57% Spearfishing from boat 6% 3% 9% Spear fishing from shore 5% 4% 9% 1st citation others citations Figure 2: Fishing mode cited by seabass fishermen in 2008 (First citation in green, other citations in grey) - (base: 467 fishermen) The rod remained the most widely used gear by seabass fishermen (two thirds of the citation). Troll line was used by almost a third of fishermen (Figure 3). The lure is the most used bait to catch seabass. Almost two thirds of people claimed to have used it during the last twelve months. The living bait was cited by nearly half of the fishermen. The techniques used for seabass fishing are not surprising, they are the common techniques observed on field. 6

7 Rod 63% 11% 74% Troll line 20% 11% 31% Net 7% 7% 14% Other 5% 5% 9% Speargun 4% 4% 8% Longline 2% 3% 1st citation others citations 5% Figure 3: Gear used by seabass fishermen in 2008 (first citation in green, other citation in grey) (base: 467 fishermen) And 45% of seabass fishermen were boat owner. And they used it for the practice of fishing at sea (Figure 4). No 55% Yes 45% Figure 4: percent of seabass fishermen owning a boat for their fishing practice (base: 467 fishermen) The fishing took place primarily in the department of residence. 70% of fishermen went fishing in their department of residence. They didn t make a long travel to practice their hobby. The average time to go to the fishing site by car was 37 minutes. And the average time to get to the fishing place by boat was roughly equivalent (38 minutes). Fishing effort According to our classification, the fishing population is divided into three categories (Figure 5): - The occasional fishermen: almost 20% who said they had a reduced level of trip during the last twelve months - The regular regularly fishermen (45%) that represent the main category, declaring between 4 and 10 fishing trips during the last twelve months - The very regular regularly fishermen (35%) reporting higher levels of trips (more than 16 a year). 7

8 4 to 15 trips 45% More than 15 trips 35% 36% 20% 9% 16% 11% 8% 1 to 3 tips 4 to 10 trips 11 to 15 trips 16 to 30 trips 31 to 50 trips 51 trips and more Figure 5: Frequency of fishing trips by fishers during the last 12 months (base: 458 fishermen) Analysing the telephone data base (by multivariable analysis), we observed that the frequency was the most discriminating variable between fishermen. This confirmed the choice of the experts for our a priori classification. The fishing mode is not so significant but it is an efficient factor to separate fishermen on field. 49% 27% 19% 16% 18% 25% 37% 52% 62% 72% 76% 60% 43% oct.-08 nov.-08 déc.-08 janv.-09 févr.-09 mars-09 avr.-09 mai-09 juin-09 juil.-09 août-09 sept.-09 oct Figure 6: Percent of seabass fishermen that done at least one fishing trip by month between October 208 and October (base: 467 fishermen) There is a strong seasonality of fishing practices (Figure 6). The winter months were characterized by limited practice, the practice of fishing started significantly in April, built up steadily, peaking in the two summer months, July and August and declined steadily thereafter. That corresponds to the evolution of meteorological conditions along the year. Summer and autumn have generally good weather combined with summer scholar holidays. Furthermore autumn is a season where seabass is abundant near the coast. Seabass catch declaration The distribution of the number of taken seabass decreased regularly (Figure 7). If nearly the half of seabass fishermen declared less than 5 catch a year, about a quarter of them evoked catch level higher than 16 seabass in the last twelve months. We may have though that fishers with less than 5 seabass caught a year were less numerous (occasional fishers only represent 18% of the total fishermen population). Actually harvest by fishers was not so important. It hasn t been calculated yet because telephone survey data are not intended to be used for this, but it will be clarified by the diary data. 8

9 Less than 5 fishes 48% 6 to 15 fishes 27% 16 to 30 fishes 15% 31 to 60 fishes 6% 60 to 120 fishes 4% 121 to 240 fishes 1% More than 240 fishes 1% Figure 7: Distribution of number of caught seabass by fishermen in 2008 (base: 467 fishermen) Intermediate results of the diary survey Fishing activity 65% 66% 58% 43% 20% 13% 6% 2% 15% 14% Figure 8 : Proportion of fishermen that done at least one fishing trip in the month (base: 77 fishermen) The seasonality of the activity still appears in the panel data (Figure 8). The number of fishermen that go fishing in the winter is low (especially as the winter 2009/2010 was very cold). The average number of trips per month is 0.9. Then the extrapolated number of trips is 1,943,881 for the 10 months observed. The average time to go to the fishing access by car is a bit lower than the time declared in the telephone survey: 26 minutes on average (with a median = 15 minutes). For 35% of the fishermen it took between 5 and 14 minutes. And again most of fishermen go fishing in their own department of residence. The average time to go by boat on the fishing site is 36 minutes (median = 25 minutes). For 44% of the fishermen using a boat it took between 15 and 29 minutes. 9

10 The fishing time is on average 3.4 hours (median = 3 hours). The variability of fishing time is low: 45% of fishermen fished between 2 and 4 hours. That means that most of the time they spent around half day to practice this hobby. Fishing modes and gear As the declaration in telephone survey, the main fishing mode of trips reported in diaries is fishing from shore (Figure 9a). It represents 55% of the fishing trips. Rod with lure (31%) and rod with living bait (31%) are the main used gears (Figure 9b), closely followed by troll line (28%). Nets (2%) and longline (1%) are the rarest gear in seabass recreational fishing. Maybe because they are the most difficult to manipulated and need more material (as electric reel ). Rod with lure 31% Rod with living bait 31% Troll line 28% Fishing on boat; 45% Fishing from shore; 55% Speargun Net 2% 6% Longline 1% (a) Figure 9: Proportion of fishing modes (a) and fishing gear (b) used by diarists for their trips between July 2009 and April 2010; (base: 404 trips) (b) Catch Among the 404 trips from diaries, 39% gave rise to a seabass catch (Figure 10). A total of 339 seabass were caught and 42% were released, mainly because they were too small. Yes 39% Release 42% No 61% Kept 58% (a) Figure 10: (a) Proportion of trips with at least a seabass catch (base: 404 trips); (b) Proportion of catch and release (base: 339 seabass) (b) 10

11 The average weight by seabass is 1kg and the average size is 39 cm. On average 0.8 seabass were caught by fishing trip. So the total estimated number of catch is 1,621,096 seabass between July 2009 and April On average fishermen caught 5.1 fishes of different species per trip. Then the total estimated number is 9,973,882 fishes others than seabass. On average, during a trip, a fisherman keeps 4.4 fishes and release 0.7 fish others than seabass. Panel animation The panel is divided in 3 groups because the different group didn t start exactly at the same time. The number of participants didn t decrease too much (Figure 11). After 10 months 41% of the fishers have given up the panel. We hope that for the last trimester the number of fishers and returned diaries will still be sufficient. Indeed we recruited more fishers than expected. Despite the reminder call before the end of each trimester, the number of returned diaries is not very high compared to the number of people in the panel (Figure 11). 100% 90% 84% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 26% 37% 70% 59% Returned diaries Fishers participating to the next trimester 20% 14% 10% 0% Trimester 1 Trimester 2 Trimester 3 Figure 11 : Percent of returned diaries after each trimester (accumulated group) and percent of participants after each semester (accumulated group) We considered as still participant the person who agreed to continue and who couldn t be contact. They received a new diary for the next period. Approximately 15% of the fishers stop after each trimester (Figure 12). During the reminder call we also made the point with fishermen on their difficulties or the motivation to carry on. after 1 st trimester 1 after 2 nd trimester after 3 rd trimester Figure 12 : Evolution of the panel (accumulated group) 11

12 Conclusion Telephone survey presents some advantages. It is a cost-effective method that gives a good estimation of the total population of fishermen and a good definition of their practice and profile. That s allows classifying the fishermen. Furthermore the cost is low compared to other method. But it can not give precise data about effort and catch, because recall period biases (Connelly et al. 2000). The diversity of species is lower that in intercept survey for instance, because fishermen only declared main catch and targeted species. And we miss person without landline phone that may represent special categories (i.e. cell phone only or with access to telephone) and are then under-estimated. With panel, the data about catch are better. Each fishing trip is well detailed, all fishes are measured. And with a small number of participants, the number of sampled fishing trips is high. We also hope fishermen didn t temper with data, because they agreed to participate. They are not obliged in anyway. One of the remained difficulties is to animate the panel during such a long period as 1 year. And keep the fishermen motivated is not that easy. But finally, the implication of recreational fishermen in the data collection makes them closer to the scientists and it improves their relations. In recreational fishing survey, the chosen method is really related to the question we want to answer. Depending on the scale, the species, the context appropriate method will be different. It is not possible to answer to resources manager questions afterwards, if the survey didn t been planned for it. The combination of the two data base is also a difficulty of dual method survey. The combination of 2 samples has to be well designed to assure the good quality and accuracy of extrapolations. The present study is still a pilot test for us to establish a long-term monitoring method. Our main objective is to take into account all common species (mackerel, pollack, seabream ) mainly those which a sensitive stock state and anticipate the EU demands. Next year sharks and rays (all species) will enter in the DCF and new protocol is to be found to assess this group. Remarks The recreational fishing issues are important. It remains a traditional activity in which people value and still not subject to regulation compared to some European neighbours. Lobbying and political constraints it brings are strong. But it can lead to conflict in terms of usage for space with other users, access to resources with the commercial fishing Seabass catch level is substantially equivalent. In some areas, conflicts with the professional fishermen have already been reported (Hubert 2009): damage or theft of fishing gear, catch stolen in traps or nets 12

13 Figures and tables Table 1 : Number of interviews by wave and department for the telephone survey... 3 Table 2: Classification design to combine the two surveys... 4 Tableau 3 : Estimation of the total number of fishermen and percent of each class (base: 467 fishers) 6 Figure 1: Percent of fishermen in the sample of households by departments... 5 Figure 2: Fishing mode cited by seabass fishermen in 2008 (First citation in green, other citations in grey) - (base: 467 fishermen)... 6 Figure 3: Gear used by seabass fishermen in 2008 (first citation in green, other citation in grey) (base: 467 fishermen)... 7 Figure 4: percent of seabass fishermen owning a boat for their fishing practice (base: 467 fishermen) 7 Figure 5: Frequency of fishing trips by fishers during the last 12 months (base: 458 fishermen)... 8 Figure 6: Percent of seabass fishermen that done at least one fishing trip by month between October 208 and October (base: 467 fishermen)... 8 Figure 7: Distribution of number of caught seabass by fishermen in 2008 (base: 467 fishermen)... 9 Figure 8 : Proportion of fishermen that done at least one fishing trip in the month (base: 77 fishermen)... 9 Figure 9: Proportion of fishing modes (a) and fishing gear (b) used by diarists for their trips between July 2009 and April 2010; (base: 404 trips) Figure 10: (a) Proportion of trips with at least a seabass catch (base: 404 trips); (b) Proportion of catch and release (base: 339 seabass) Figure 11 : Percent of returned diaries after each trimester (accumulated group) and percent of participants after each semester (accumulated group) Figure 12 : Evolution of the panel (accumulated group)

14 Annexe 1: Page from the diary to record fishing trip information 14

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