Understanding the Attitudes and Preference Recreational Anglers Hold Toward Saltwater Fishing

NOAA Fisheries completed a mail survey of registered recreational fishing license holders in the United States. The objective of the survey was to understand the range of attitudes, preferences, and concerns that recreational anglers hold towards saltwater fishing. Furthermore, the survey elicited the types of goals and objectives that should be pursued (e.g., in developing guidelines), and overall attitudes and concerns regarding recreational fisheries management. Across all U.S. regions, anglers preferred for management to protect and restore degraded fish habitat, while their least preferred management goal was to enact shorter seasons with less restrictive bag limits. Anglers were satisfied that managers are protecting marine habitat, but unsatisfied that there is consistency between state and federal regulations and that stakeholder interests are incorporated into management decisions. NOAA Fisheries and the federal Fishery Management Councils can use these results to inform recreational fisheries management. In order to better understand anglers’ preferences for management options, a latent class analysis will be completed. The model will explore the heterogeneity of anglers due to differences in region, avidity, demographics or other subgroups identified in the data. The results will be used to understand the social values that anglers have for recreational fisheries management.