NOAA's National Saltwater Angler Registry

At the request of NOAA, the National Research Council (NRC) conducted a review of recreational fishing data collection methods and published its findings in 2006.  One of the principal recommendations was that NOAA establish a national registry of all saltwater anglers, and subsequently utilize the registry as a sample frame for telephone surveys of fishing activity.  NOAA was mandated by Congress in the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act (MSRA) to implement a federal saltwater angler registration requirement.  MRSA does not authorize NOAA to collect data on all anglers who fish solely in state waters, but does allow exemption of anglers from the federal registration requirement if they are licensed or registered by a state that provides acceptable data to NOAA.  NOAA established the “National Saltwater Angler Registry” (NSAR) to implement the MSRA provisions.  NSAR provides for federal registration of non-exempt anglers and encourages the development or improvement of state managed licenses or registries to better meet both the legal requirements of MSRA and the needs for a complete registry-based angler sample frame.  The final NSAR system has a number of components: public online registration, a call center option for registration, online state data upload tools, and a relational database.  The NSAR was successfully deployed on January 1, 2010, satisfying the statutory mandate, and so far has issued over 700,000 registrations.  To date, 26 of 29 coastal state or territorial governments have entered into agreements to provide state data for the national registry.