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Charting Three Decades of Fishing on Stellwagen Bank
Rhonda Ryznar, Department of Urban Studies and Planning,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Madeleine Hall-Arber, Center for Marine Social Sciences,
MIT Sea Grant College Program
Olivia Free, Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership
Increasingly strict regulations restricting fishing in New England and the
anticipation of the development of a new management plan for Stellwagen Bank
Marine Sanctuary led commercial fishermen, including charter boat captains,
who use the Bank to seek ways to document current and traditional use of each
gear type. They recognized that management requires accurate, area-based
information about fishing practices and how these have changed over time.
A lack of spatial data at a fine scale of resolution, including details
about the use of available resources, and the absence of information about
the social and economic impacts of changes to such uses, constrains the
potential for equitable management. With the help of Massachusetts
Fishermen’s Partnership, almost 150 interviews of fishermen were conducted in
2005 by seven fishermen using a short list of questions and separate charts
to mark fishing patterns in 1984, 1994, and 2004. Data on current and
historical information about fishing locations (according to season and
year), species targeted, landings (quantity and value), species life cycles,
ports of landing and home ports, gear type, and bottom type was gathered. The
charts were digitized for use in Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
GIS allows selection and viewing of data by any field in the database. In
addition, GIS facilitates viewing data on top of multiple map layers, such as
maps of underwater terrain, bottom conditions, temperature, regulatory
boundaries or scientists’ information on habitat features and extent. Because
everything has a location reference, databases can be linked through space
and analyzed statistically.
The digitalized charts depict what has changed over time and space in
Stellwagen. From these changes and the links to responses to interview
questions, inherences about the resulting social and economic changes can be
drawn. Additionally, GIS enables the fishermen’s documentation of aspects of
bottom type and habitat to also inform management choices. Furthermore, the
data will allow managers at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and
the New England Fishery Management Council to analyze how regulations have
already altered fishing behaviors and impacts, information essential to
assess as new measures are considered.
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