A Diversified Management Approach Address Heterogeneous Anglers in Recreational Fisheries

A fundamental objective of recreational fisheries management is promoting angler satisfaction with their fishing experience, but anglers may be quite heterogeneous in how they attain satisfaction. This almost ensures that no single management action is likely to optimally satisfy all anglers.  A spatially diversified management strategy may address this challenge, whereby various water bodies are managed differently to provide a portfolio of angling experiences from which anglers can select.  We describe this approach by modeling a hypothetical regional recreational fisheries system and evaluate the expected angler utility over alternative single management strategies.  Results show that (1) the diversified portfolio strategy is likely to yield increase angler utility throughout a region relative to multiple common single management strategies and (2) the efficacy of the diversified portfolio management strategy is mediated by the underlying diversity of anglers, as well as the biological diversity of fish populations. A key implication is that this strategy is well suited to diminish user conflicts if appropriately implemented. Moreover, when integrated with active adaptive management approaches and potentially community co-management, it may be one of the most meaningful ways to enhance resilience of recreational fisheries systems.