Smartphone-Based Angler Logbooks As a Tool to Inform Fisheries Management; Challenges and Opportunities

Fisheries assessment requires information about harvest and effort, and how these vary in space and time. Conventional approaches to obtaining this information are costly, limited by diminishing resources, and usually restricted in time or space. Mobile smartphone applications (apps) are a novel approach to collecting a wealth of angler behavior and fisheries data cheaply, at high resolution, and over broad spatial scales. We draw on results from recent and ongoing app studies in North America and Europe to demonstrate and discuss the opportunities that angler apps present. The challenge before us is to understand the benefits and limitations of this novel tool, and, where appropriate, tailor its use to a diversity of not only recreational fisheries, but also commercial and subsistence fisheries. We propose a number of solutions to these challenges, including the adoption of standards for app design and data capture and reporting.