Program Overview
An initiative is underway to build a new program to improve the collection, analysis, and use of recreational saltwater fishing information. This data program is vital to ensuring the health of marine fisheries.
NOAA Fisheries oversees several data collection and analysis programs to track a host of factors affecting fisheries populations, ranging from commercial discards to recreational fishing catch rates to habitat quality. The combination of all this information gives policy-makers the information they need to make sound conservation decisions.
BRINGING THE BEST MINDS TOGETHER
Today, NOAA Fisheries, regional fishery management councils, interstate fisheries commissions, state agencies, and partners are working together to revamp saltwater angler surveys, which are among the most important data collection tools.
Because so much has changed since NOAA Fisheries launched its original recreational fishing data program, the agency is bringing the best minds together, inside and outside the agency, to develop a new survey program to meet the needs of today’s fisheries managers. The idea is to address ever-greater demands for more timely and accurate data on saltwater recreational fishing.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
NOAA Fisheries’ original recreational fishing data program, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Surveys, will be phased out over the next several years. The new program is called the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP).
Quite simply, the new surveys will better answer these fundamental questions: Who fishes? What’s being caught? How many fish are caught? Where and when are they caught? In addition, a new saltwater angler registry will give the agency a more definitive pool of survey participants to call upon, at the same time giving saltwater anglers better representation in the decision-making process.
LOOKING OUT ON THE HORIZON
The new Marine Recreational Information Program is designed to improve the methodology of collection and analysis of saltwater recreational fishing data. Ultimately, it will help policy-makers gain a far better understanding of saltwater fishing’s relationship to fisheries conservation.
Beyond the numbers, the Marine Recreational Information Program will help all of us who care about the health of ocean fisheries and the sport of fishing to pass on these strong conservation values to future generations.