Recreational fishing and the sustainability of fisheries

In New Zealand (as in many other countries), we manage our fisheries using a transferable quota system. Quotas regulate the number of fish that are allowed to be removed from the sea in a given period of time. The total quota is set by determining a total allowable catch for a year (in theory at least this is roughly equal to the growth in the fishery stock), with some allowance made for recreational fishing. Quotas work well because they make fish excludable (no quota means no fishing) and are backed up by monitoring and enforcement. If we didn't have a quota system (or some other alternative), fish would be a non-excludable good (anyone could fish as much as they want), and that would make fish much more vulnerable to over-fishing.

Most of the time, we worry about commercial fishermen over-exploiting the fishery. This is because, while all fishermen as a group have an incentive to manage the fishery sustainably, each individual fisherman has an incentive to take as many fish as they can, in order to increase their profits from fishing. So, if the fishery isn't actively managed (through a quota system, or through some other means), it can quickly become unsustainable. However, in the quota management system we worry much less about the actions of recreational fishermen, so I was interested to read this New Zealand Herald article from last month:

Recreational fishers have dramatically increased their catch of snapper and kahawai in the Hauraki Gulf over the past 30 years, a new survey has found.

A Fisheries New Zealand national survey, conducted between October 2017 and September 2018, estimated there were nearly 2 million fishing trips taken across the country.

An estimated 7m individual finfish and 3.9m individual shellfish were caught in this period.

The survey also found the average recreational kahawai catch had more than quadrupled in the Hauraki Gulf in the past 30 years, while the snapper catch had nearly tripled, despite trending down since the last survey in 2012.

On the surface, that sounds bad for the fisheries. However, whether the increasing recreational catch is bad or not crucially depends on how much allowance is being made for recreational fishing within the rules, and how much the total allowable catch (plus recreational fishing) is, compared with the growth in the fishery stock. It seems that we might have the balance about right:

Fisheries New Zealand director of fisheries management Stuart Anderson said the results confirmed the popularity of recreational fishing among New Zealanders...

"There's been little change in the proportion of these fish caught by recreational and commercial fishers since 2012."

The survey contacted more than 30,000 people, and about 7,000 recreational fishers had their fishing outings recorded over a 12-month period.

Fisheries Inshore NZ chief executive, Dr Jeremy Helson, said the increase in snapper and kahawai catch showed stocks were in great shape and the quota management system was working.

"Like the commercial sector, recreational fishers need to respect the rules and contribute to managing our fisheries resources.

Given that the quota system has come in for some criticism of late (especially around enforcement), it is good to know that it is working well in at least some fisheries.

Read more:

• Enforcement is key for sustainable fishing quotas