From Your Wallet to Unwieldy: The Proliferation of Harvest Regulations in North America

Harvest regulations represent one of the primary tools used to manage exploited fish populations. The number of harvest regulations implemented by state and provincial agencies has substantially increased over the last century, but the increase has not been linear and a dramatic proliferation of regulations has occurred within the last two decades, largely in the form of stock-specific regulations.  In general, harvest regulations have become more conservative over time, but many popular harvest-oriented fisheries are still managed with relatively liberal regulations often because more stringent regulations would be socially unacceptable.  Additionally, the complexity of harvest regulations has also increased. Historically, most regulations came in the form of simple daily bag limits, minimum length limits, and closed seasons. Currently, slot-length limits and length-based bag limits are common and many water bodies have regulations that vary on spatial and temporal scales. Meaningful evaluation of regulations has been rare and is often difficult in light of inherent population variability and lack of sampling of effort.  In many cases, the proliferation of stock-specific regulations appears unwarranted in light of existing fishery knowledge and could have negative impacts on participation. While many anglers remain supportive of more restrictive regulations because they believe regulations will improve fishing, the complexity of regulations is frequently a source of angler complaints. For many fisheries, questions still remain regarding the need and effectiveness of harvest regulations and we are just beginning to explore how regulation changes affect angler decisions regarding participation and where they choose to fish.