Urban recreational fisheries in the Australian coastal zone:The sustainability challenge

Recreational fishing is an important wildlife harvesting activity in urban coastal areas, and recreational harvest in these areas can frequently exceed the commercial harvest. Recreational fishing is a key way that many members of the public experience the environment. The activity enhances social capital, promotes respect for nature, provides health benefits and can provide economic benefits to coastal communities. It is also an important driver of the science on aquatic animals and habitats, and an important tangible reason for many members of the public to conserve and protect aquatic resources. Overall, there has been little specific consideration of urban recreational fisheries management in Australia, despite the paramount importance of urban areas as a focus of recreational fishing activity. This paper identifies that in order to maximize individual and societal benefits from recreational fishing, there needs to be a refocussing of management with the aim of being more holistic. Historically, fisheries management in Australia has focused on maximum sustainable yield (MSY) or maximum economic yield (MEY) which is relevant for the commercial fishing sector, but neither of these is directly relevant to recreational fisheries. This paper identifies that Urban Fisheries Management Plans are required that recognize the specific issues associated with urban recreational fisheries. These plans need to coordinate within and between levels of government and have clear management objectives relevant to urban recreational fisheries. Enhanced opportunities for meaningful citizen science can be incorporated at multiple levels within these plans and this can engender public support for environmental stewardship, as well as fill a very important gap in the knowledge base necessary for managing the activity. As urban recreational fisheries are often occurring in highly modified or degraded habitats, a central element of these plans needs to be habitat restoration and this can have broader benefits for aquatic health. Other management tools include habitat creation (e.g., artificial reefs), optimization of coastal infrastructure as fisheries habitat, and stock enhancement. Overall, Urban Fisheries Management Plans represent a necessary evolution of fisheries management to better address the specific challenges of urban recreational fisheries management, and to best ensure that benefits are optimised

Using ecological evidence to refine approaches to deploying offshore artificial reefs for recreational fisheries

Artificial reefs have many applications but are best known for their deployments to enhance recreational fisheries by creating new habitat in areas where natural reef is otherwise limited. The expectation is that fish assemblages will take up residence on artificial reefs and that these assemblages will become at least similar, if not more diverse and abundant, to those on natural reefs. Although designed, purpose-built artificial reefs are becoming more widely used in support of recreational fisheries and many of the historic issues have been resolved, conservation practitioners and managers still face challenges as to the type, number, and arrangement of structures and where to deploy them to maximize benefits and minimize risks. The ecological literature was reviewed to develop and enhance contemporary principles of artificial reef best practices for utilization. Our review identified optimal shapes, vertical relief, void spaces, and unit arrangements for increasing volumes and diversity of catch to recreational fishers and we provide a tool for identifying the least constrained areas for artificial reef deployment. We suggest; (a) monitoring of noncatch motivators in combination with quantitative indicators of the fishing activity (e.g., catch rate and effort) will provide the best understanding of success or failure of an artificial reef deployment; (b) choosing target species for informing purpose-built artificial reef designs to be reef-associated, demersal, philopatric, territorial, and obligatory reef species that are desired by local recreational fishers; and (c) considering the ecosystem services provided by artificial reefs beyond those associated with recreational fishing

A global review of marine recreational spearfishing

24 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-023-09790-7.-- Data availability: The full list of papers used for the systematic review is available as a supplementary tableRecreational spearfishing is a fishing method that occurs globally, yet receives considerably less attention in the scientific literature relative to other recreational fishing methods, such as angling. Lack of scientific information on spearfishing may negatively affect the development and management of marine recreational fisheries. We conducted a systematic review of 102 peer-reviewed papers published between 1967 and 2022 pertaining to marine recreational spearfishing. Based on this literature review, we provide an overview of key insights across social, economic, and ecological dimensions of marine recreational spearfishing. While spearfishers represent less than 5% of marine recreational fishers, the participants are younger and may differ from recreational anglers in their motivations, with suggestions of increased well-being generated from a close connection with the sea during underwater fishing. Recreational spearfishers mostly target species of moderate to high levels of vulnerability that are mid to high trophic level carnivores. Though spearfishers can deliberately target larger individuals of exploited populations, this is not a generalizable pattern. Despite a growing body of research on the ecological impacts of marine recreational spearfishing, there is limited knowledge of these effects and their mechanisms across biological levels of organization (e.g., individual, population, community and ecosystem) compared with those of other fishing methods. Recreational spearfishers can contribute to advances in marine ecological knowledge, and inclusive participatory management could represent a key step towards transformative sustainable development of marine recreational spearfishing. Throughout the review, we identify gaps in the research and areas where future research is needed to better inform the socio-economic importance, ecosystem impacts and future management of marine recreational spearfishingVS was supported by a “Juan de la Cierva Incorporación” (IJC2018-035389-I), and he is now supported by a “Ramón y Cajal” research fellowships (RYC2021-033065-I) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. SV and PP are supported by the Xunta de Galicia (RECREGES I and II projects under Grants ED481B2014/034-0 and ED481B2018/017), Grupo de Referencia Competitiva GI-2060 AEMI, under Grant ED431C2019/11), and Fundación Biodiversidad, Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico, Gobierno de España (SICORE and GT PMR projects). VJG received a postdoctoral grant (#2017/22273-0) from São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). MR would like to acknowledge Portuguese national funds from FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology through projects UIDB/04326/2020, UIDP/04326/2020 and LA/P/0101/2020. MR would also like to acknowledge FCT funding through a postdoctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/116307/2016). JACCN thanks to Meros do Brasil Project sponsored by Petrobras. FJH is supported by a Sȇr Cymru European Regional Development Fund Fellowship (80761-SU-135). RA was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grants 01LC1826E and 033W046A). ML is supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII, POS_EXT_2020_1_165362). This work acknowledges the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S). [...] Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer NaturePeer reviewe