How Angler Surveys Work
Who's Responsible For Collecting Fishing Information
The Department of Commerce’s NOAA Fisheries Service is entrusted with ensuring the long-term health of ocean fisheries and other marine life in federal waters. By doing so, we help saltwater anglers enjoy rewarding days on the water, commercial fishermen earn a good living, and citizens living along our coasts experience a good quality of life.
NOAA Fisheries works with eight regional fishery councils and three interstate fisheries commissions to regularly review the health of hundreds of ocean fisheries. They use this information to decide how many fish can be taken recreationally and commercially without negatively affecting the long term health of individual fisheries. They also ensure appropriate measures are taken to recover fisheries in trouble.
One vital tool for fishery councils and commissions—as well as state agencies that make conservation decisions in state waters —is a series of surveys that estimate saltwater anglers’ overall catch and effort (“effort” means how many fishing trips anglers took over a given period).
How We Count Fish And Fisherman
While it’s impossible to ask each and every one of America’s 13 million anglers about their fishing habits, NOAA Fisheries and state agencies can survey enough anglers to gather the needed information to make sound fisheries conservation policy. Just like polls that predict such things as Presidential elections within a few percentage points, NOAA Fisheries has developed a survey program that can determine total catch by surveying a few thousand saltwater anglers.
Sampling is based on mathematical probability theory, which may sound complex, but the basic concept really isn’t. George Gallup, founder of the famous Gallup Poll, once described sampling with this simple analogy: he said sampling a population was like taste-testing soup; one spoonful can reflect the taste of the whole bowl, if the soup is well stirred. In other words, a sample can accurately reflect a much larger population so long as the sample is representative of the whole.
When it comes to surveying saltwater anglers, NOAA Fisheries selects sites in proportion to the expected fishing activity at those sites. This broad representation is what “stirs the soup.” In addition to being representative, the sample size also has to be large enough to derive the most statistically accurate estimates.
Because we’re not counting each angler and every fish, it is inevitable that there will be some margin of error associated with estimates (as is the case with all surveys). The key is to keep it within a statistically acceptable percentage range to ensure the most accurate conclusions possible.
How Anglers Are Currently Sampled
The current program is made up of an integrated system of surveys, each targeted toward particular segments of the fishing community (one for for-hire vessels, one for anglers pursuing highly migratory species, and one for all other anglers).
Most current angler surveys randomly sample angler catch and effort, and then incorporate a simple estimation procedure to determine total catch. Catch and effort information is gathered separately to ensure we get representative and independent samples. This means the survey program is comprised of two parts:
- In-Person Intercepts – NOAA Fisheries contractors and state agency employees work together, serving as in-field samplers to conduct angler surveys. Samplers work at marinas, boat ramps, and shore fishing sites to interview anglers about their trips and count, weigh, and measure their catch. From that information, gathered over time and in various locales, the average catch per trip is estimated. Samplers will NOT ask about how often you fish, as the purpose of dockside sampling is ONLY to estimate catch.
- Telephone Surveys – NOAA Fisheries hires telephone interviewers to contact anglers about their effort, or the number of trips that were taken during a specified period. When a saltwater angler agrees to participate in an interview, he or she is asked the number of trips they took in the preceding two months. Given the challenges of remembering catch for a particular day and correctly identifying the myriad fish species, anglers will not be asked about catch on the phone. The ONLY purpose of the phone interview is to sample effort.
Total catch is then estimated by combining these two independent sets of data, using the following formula: Catch per Trip x Number of Trips = Total Catch.
It usually takes a couple of months to compile information from both surveys, perform quality control, and tabulate the results from each 2 month wave. As a result, in most places, total estimates of catch and effort are produced on an annual basis. These annual estimates are then used by scientists and managers to determine the health and sustainability of the fishery and make informed decisions about how many fish can be caught the following year.
Improving Angler Surveys
To ensure that the estimates we provide are based on the most sound science -- and that the numbers we produce meet the standards of accuracy, reliability and trust of our many customers and stakeholders -- we and our broad array of partners have developed the Marine Recreational Information Program, or MRIP.
MRIP is the new way NOAA Fisheries is counting and reporting marine recreational catch and effort. It is a customer-driven initiative that will not only produce better estimates, but will do so through a process grounded in the principles of transparency, accountability and engagement. MRIP replaces the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey, or MRFSS, which has been in place since the 1970s.
MRIP is designed to meet two critical needs.
- Provide the detailed, timely, scientifically sound estimates that fisheries managers, stock assessors and marine scientists need to ensure the sustainability of ocean resources.
- Address head-on stakeholder concerns about the reliability and credibility of recreational fishing catch and effort estimates.
MRIP explicitly recognizes that the numbers we produce do not exist in a vacuum, that they have real impacts on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans.
MRIP will reduce potential bias and increase the accuracy, timeliness and spatial resolution of recreational catch and effort estimates. MRIP is also intended to increase customer and stakeholder confidence in those estimates. MRIP will not be a fisheries management "silver bullet"; it is the commitment to a process in which end users' needs are a top consideration. We can't predict how much different individual estimates for any given stock or wave may be under MRIP, but we do know that the quality of the estimates will be significantly enhanced because the numbers are generated through a newly refined, more statistically robust process.