Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Despite the need to quantify total catch to support sustainable fisheries management, estimating harvests of recreational fishers remains a challenge. Harvest estimates from mark–recapture studies have proven valuable, yet animal movements and migrations may bias some of these estimates. To improve recreational harvest estimates, explore seasonal and spatial harvest patterns, and understand the influence of animal movement on exploitation rates, we conducted a mark–recapture experiment for the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) fishery in Maryland waters of Chesapeake Bay, USA. Data were analyzed with standard tag-return methods and with revised equations that accounted for crab movement between reporting areas. Using standard calculations, state-wide recreational harvest was estimated to be 4.04 million crabs. When movement was included in the calculations, the estimate was 5.39 million, an increase of 34%. With crab movement, recreational harvest in Maryland was estimated to be 6.5% of commercial harvest, a finding consistent with previous effort surveys. The new methods presented herein are broadly applicable for estimating recreational harvest in fisheries that target mobile species and for which spatial variation in commercial harvest is known.

中文翻译：

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蓝蟹运动对娱乐性收获和开发的标记回收估计的影响

《加拿大渔业和水生科学杂志》，印刷前。
尽管需要量化总产量以支持可持续渔业管理，但估计休闲渔民的收成仍然是一个挑战。标记回收研究的收成估计值已被证明是有价值的，但是动物的活动和迁徙可能会使其中一些估计值产生偏差。为了提高休闲性收获的估计，探索季节性和空间性收获方式并了解动物活动对剥削率的影响，我们在美国切萨皮克湾的马里兰水域对蓝蟹（Callinectes sapidus）捕捞进行了标记捕获实验。使用标准的标签返回方法和修正后的方程式对数据进行了分析，这些方程式说明了报告区域之间的螃蟹运动。根据标准计算，全州范围内的休闲捕鱼量估计为404万只螃蟹。如果将运动包括在内，则估计为539万，增加了34％。由于螃蟹运动，马里兰的娱乐性收成估计占商业性收成的6.5％，这一发现与之前的调查一致。本文介绍的新方法广泛适用于估计以活动物种为目标且已知商业捕捞空间变化的渔业中的休闲捕捞。