The Importance of Heterogeneous Angler Behaviour and Fish Life History for the Socially Optimal Management of Recreational Fisheries

Some recreational fisheries are not managed sustainably. This might be related to the omission or oversimplification of angler behaviour and angler heterogeneity in fisheries-management models. To predict recreational fishing impacts on freshwater fish species it is important to understand the interplay among fish populations, anglers, and management actions. We present an integrated bioeconomic modelling approach to examine how differing assumptions about angler behaviour and angler preferences (generic, consumptive, or trophy angler types) alter predictions about optimal recreational-fisheries management, where optimal regulations were determined by maximizing aggregated angler utility. Furthermore, we examined how results varied with fish life history (LHT) by describing five prototypical freshwater species – European perch (Perca fluviatilis), brown trout (Salmo trutta), pikeperch (Sander lucioperca), northern pike (Esox lucius), and bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). We report four main results. First, we found that accounting for dynamic angler behaviour changed predictions about optimal input (license number) and output (minimum-size limit) regulations, and that optimal angling regulations varied substantially among different angler types. However, the welfare measure used to quantify aggregated utility altered the predicted optimal regulations, highlighting the importance of choosing welfare measures that closely reflect management objectives. Second, LHT was important for determining fish populations’ vulnerability to overfishing, but angler type influenced the magnitude of declines, because of differences in fishing practices and the influence of LHT on angler-effort dynamics. Socially optimal minimum-size limits generally increased as LHT vulnerability increased, while optimal license numbers had a similar range across LHTs. However, both regulations varied among angler populations. Thus, both LHT and the composition of the angler population in terms of angler types were important for determining optimal regulations. Third, angler types were systematically attracted to particular LHTs (e.g., consumptive anglers preferred perch, and trophy anglers preferred pike and bull trout), resulting the partial exclusion of some angler types under optimal regulations. Fourth, a final key finding of this research was that despite differences in socially optimal regulations, these regulations resulted in biological sustainability, in all but one case. Our results highlight the importance of jointly considering fish diversity, angler diversity, and management when deriving sustainable management strategies for recreational fisheries. Failure to do so could result in socially suboptimal management, fishery collapse, or both.