Breathing life into fisheries stock assessments with citizen science

Abstract

Citizen science offers a potentially cost-effective way for researchers to obtain large data sets over large spatial scales. However, it is not used widely to support biological data collection for fisheries stock assessments. Overfishing of demersal fishes along 1,000 km of the west Australian coast led to restrictive management to recover stocks. This diminished opportunities for scientists to cost-effectively monitor stock recovery via fishery-dependent sampling, particularly of the recreational fishing sector. As fishery-independent methods would be too expensive and logistically-challenging to implement, a citizen science program, Send us your skeletons (SUYS), was developed. SUYS asks recreational fishers to voluntarily donate fish skeletons of important species from their catch to allow biological data extraction by scientists to produce age structures and conduct stock assessment analyses. During SUYS, recreational fisher involvement, sample sizes and spatial and temporal coverage of samples have dramatically increased, while the collection cost per skeleton has declined substantially. SUYS is ensuring sampling objectives for stock assessments are achieved via fishery-dependent collection and reliable and timely scientific advice can be provided to managers. The program is also encouraging public ownership through involvement in the monitoring process, which can lead to greater acceptance of management decisions.

The co-existence of recreational and artisanal fisheries in the central parts of the Danube and Sava rivers

“…Jansen et al, 2013;Cabanellas-Reboredo, 2014;Dunn, 2014;Eero, 2015). Such data is further expanded with new innovations (Schratwieser, 2014;Wilson, 2014) and by the help of the volunteers through the citizen science (Fairclough, 2014). Because fishing nets are the main tool, the composition of the fish species in the artisanal catch is close to the actual composition of any water body.…”

A Review of the Tools Used for Marine Monitoring in the UK: Combining Historic and Contemporary Methods with Modeling and Socioeconomics to Fulfill Legislative Needs and Scientific Ambitions

“…There are many good examples of using citizen science to develop the evidence base that underpins decision making (Hyder et al, 2015b) including: prevailing conditions (e.g., Wright et al, 2016); fisheries (e.g., Fairclough et al, 2014); and marine litter (e.g., OSPAR, 2010). Despite the potential benefits, the uptake and use of citizen science in support of decision making has been low, mainly due to challenges around data quality, access to data, motivation of volunteers and physical location (Hyder et al, 2015a,b).…”

A framework for addressing ethical issues in citizen science

“…Citizens have helped professional scientists gather data on animal and plant populations (Cohn, 2008;Gardiner et al, 2012;Donnelly et al, 2014), canine behavior (Hecht and Spicer Rice, 2015), celestial objects (The Planetary Society, 2014;Citizen Science Alliance, 2014), environmental pollutants (Conrad and Hilchey, 2011), fisheries (Fairclough et al, 2014), whale sounds (Citizen Science Alliance, 2014), meteorology (Citizen Science Alliance, 2014), and invasive species (Starr et al, 2014, Gallo andWaitt, 2011). Laypeople have played a pivotal role in study design, subject recruitment, and data interpretation in community-based research in public, environmental, and mental health (O'Fallon and Dearry, 2002;Savage et al, 2006;Horowitz et al, 2009).…”