NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK: COST-EFFECTIVE SAMPLING OF MARINE SPORT ANGLERS

Abstract

An obstacle to conducting economic studies of marine sport anglers is the difficulty and expense in drawing a representative sample. Unlike inland fishing, where licenses are required in all states, only selected states require a marine sport fishing license and these licenses usually only cover selected marine fishing activities. Currently, there are no low cost methods of obtaining a representative sample of marine anglers because they are generally not licensed, use multiple access points, and represent a small proportion of the general population. The difficulty and expense of drawing a representative sample may have stifled attempts to study marine anglers. We test alternative sampling strategies by comparing the characteristics of a representative sample of experienced marine anglers with the characteristics of two other samples using multivariate and univariate analysis techniques. We conclude a sample of marine anglers drawn from the population of licensed inland anglers is not significantly different from the representative sample of experienced marine anglers.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,