Volume 76
FISHstory – Using Citizen Science to Describe Historic Catches in the U.S. South Atlantic.
Authors
Byrd, J., C. Collier, and A. Iberle Download PDF Open PDF in BrowserOther Information
Date: November, 2023
Event: Proceedings of the Seventy-Sixth Annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute
City: Nassau
Country: The Bahamas
Abstract
The U.S. South Atlantic region has many long-standing data needs and limited data collection resources for federally managed marine fish stocks. Much of the harvest is dominated by recreational fisheries, where data are limited, especially during historic time periods (National Marine Fisheries Service 2019, SEDAR 2015). FISHstory, a pilot project developed through the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Citizen Science Program, developed a standardized protocol for archiving and analyzing historic photos from the 1940s to 1970s from a for-hire fleet based in Daytona Beach, Florida. These photos document the beginnings of the for-hire fishery off Florida and are an untapped source of data which can be used to help recreate information on landings and length compositions before dedicated catch monitoring programs began.