Cultural and Institutional Challenges to Managing Uncertainty and Change in Northern Wisconsin Inland Lake Fisheries

In many mesotrophic lakes in northern Wisconsin, largemouth bass are displacing walleye as the dominant predator.  Changes are being accelerated by increases in water clarity and macrophytes that facilitate largemouth bass recruitment and intra-guild predation while reducing thermal-optical habitat for angler-preferred walleye.  Cultural trends associated with these changes include increased voluntary catch-and-release of bass and improvements in angling technology that facilitate harvest of walleye.  Institutional policies and paradigms that may contribute to observed changes include restrictive harvest regulations for largemouth bass; a landscape-scale focus on fish populations rather than an ecosystem-scale focus on aquatic communities; and a pessimistic view that measurement errors and high natural variation prevent us from truly understanding and effectively managing fisheries.  Uncertainty and aversion to criticism from vocal minority interests are barriers to regulatory liberalization and active promotion of selective harvest of largemouth bass to favor walleye in lakes with good walleye habitat.  Adaptive management is further delayed by processes that provide stakeholders with insufficient input to goals but excessive influence over tactics (especially harvest regulations) that are best selected by professional fishery managers.  I recommend adjustments to paradigms and processes that will allow us to adapt more effectively to environmental and social change.