Hearing Voices from the Silent Majority: A Comparison of Preferred Fish Stocking Outcomes for Lake Huron by Anglers from Representative and Convenience Samples

We developed a questionnaire on fish stocking outcomes for Lake Huron and solicited responses from Ontario anglers who actively fished Lake Huron. These solicitations included both a mail/web-based questionnaire that was distributed to a random sample of anglers and a web-based questionnaire that was made available to any angler (or interested individual) who expressed their interest to be part of the public consultation process around fish stocking in Lake Huron (i.e., the convenience sample). This presentation focuses on results and predictions from a stated-preference choice model that examined these anglers’ preferred outcomes from fish stocking of Lake Huron. Anglers preferred outcomes that decreased risks of fish stock collapses and increased native prey fish species, average fish size, and species abundance especially for walleye (Sander vitreus) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Support for three stocking outcomes (lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) rehabilitation, Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) emphasis, and status quo) was estimated from the choice models. We estimated that randomly-sampled anglers were most supportive of lake trout rehabilitation outcome while conveniently-sampled anglers were most supportive of Chinook salmon emphasis outcome. Therefore, perspectives that anglers share during typical public consultation efforts (such as those from the convenience sample) may fundamentally differ from those of representative anglers. Consequently, managers and others should be careful to ensure that the perspectives they hear from publics about fisheries management are representative of larger populations of anglers (and non-anglers).