Pike (Esox lucius) stock management in designated brown trout (Salmo trutta) fisheries: Anglers’ preferences

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Pike (Esox lucius) stock management in designated brown trout (Salmo trutta) fisheries: Anglers' preferences John Curtis* Abstract: This paper examines anglers' preferences for active stock management of pike populations within designated wild brown trout fisheries in Ireland. While the policy of pike control has a long history, it is not without controversy and conflict. As the objective of pike control is the protection of trout stocks, a superficial view might be that trout anglers favour and pike anglers oppose such management intervention. Pike and trout anglers do not have homogeneous preferences; in fact, a substantial minority of pike anglers also fish for trout and vice versa. The current paper is the first to examine Irish pike and trout anglers' preferences over fishery attributes, including pike stock control methods. Preference data was elicited by means of choice experiments for pike and trout anglers and a latent class site choice model is used to estimate anglers' utility functions. Not surprisingly model results show that pike anglers do not support pike stock control and almost universally would choose fishing sites where there are no pike stock controls, all else equal. We find that the majority of trout anglers, 61%, are negatively disposed towards pike stock control, and all else equal, are more likely to choose fishing sites where pike stocks are not actively managed. A substantial minority of trout anglers (i.e. 39%) could be considered advocates of pike control, with about one-third of these being more extreme in their preferences, with site choice probabilities of such anglers being largely determined by the pike control management option. Terms of use: Documents in

Data collection systems and methodologies for the inland fisheries of Europe

“…Since 2013, further socio-economic studies have been undertaken to estimate the value of different aspects of the Irish fishery resource; for example, modelling recreational anglers' decisions to voluntarily release their catch, to assess anglers' preferences in relation to pike stock management in brown trout fisheries (Deely et al, 2019;Grilli et al, 2019, Curtis, 2018. More information can be found on www.esri/ publications.…”

Evaluating management options for two fisheries that conflict through predator–prey interactions of target species

“…The designated trout lakes now support valuable recreational fisheries for both trout and pike (IFI, 2015a,b), and pike removal as a fisheries management tool has become a heavily contested issue (Curtis, 2018). Many of the designated lakes have shown strong environmental changes in recent decades (Champ, 1998), which may modify the impacts of fish predation (Haught and von Hippel, 2011).…”

“…Arguments between advocates for each fishery can become heated in the confined arena of a recreational lake-fishery, e.g. Curtis (2018). It is in this context that we developed a quantitative framework, with realistic representations of uncertainty and underlying ecological interactions, to be used for examining management options whereever two or more species interact through predator-prey dynamics.…”

Recreational angling demand in a mixed resource fishery

“…culled) to enhance the trout fisheries due to predation on trout (Hyvärinen & Vehanen, 2004). While opinions and preferences for stock management have already been studied (Curtis, 2018), a robust understanding of the economic benefits that pike and brown trout anglers enjoy is still incomplete. This aspect is important because it allows further insights into the economic benefits of recreational angling, as well as providing an economic justification for stock management decisions in addition to fishery or biological concerns.…”

“…With respect to pike and brown trout angling, previous studies investigated other aspects of the pike‐trout dichotomy. Some contributions focused on ecological studies of pike and trout stocks (Mann, 1985), while others focused on understanding angler preferences for pike stock control policies (Curtis, 2018), none has considered the differences in pike and trout angler demand preferences. Studies on economic assessment of multiple species (Greene, Moss, & Spreen, 1997; Haab, Hicks, Schnier, & Whitehead, 2012; Shrestha, Seidl, & Moraes, 2002) or differences between game and coarse angling (Curtis & Breen, 2017) are available in the literature, but this paper specifically estimates demand preferences in a mixed pike trout fishery in Ireland.…”