Research article
New insight into the motivations of anglers and fish release practices in view of the invasiveness of angling

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111055Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Preferences of sociodemographic groups were defined in the ordination space.

  • Some socioeconomic indicators reflect changes in the intensity of anglers' needs.

  • Four motivational-preferential profiles with different invasiveness were identified.

  • Associated, most active, skilled and wealthy anglers are easiest to educate.

  • Site managers should protect fish in cooperation with angling communities.

Abstract

The popularity of angling on a global scale reflects the individual needs of people from different social groups in many countries. The socio-economic background and intensity of needs are variable over time and can be modified. These arguments support the development and need to update research among anglers. A new insight into angling research is to link the hierarchy of needs with socio-economic factors concerning and the preferences of anglers in handling fish. These relationships were analyzed using ordinal probit regression and graphically interpreted in an ordination space. The endogenous need for communing with nature is constant in its intensity, regardless of any external factors. Other needs weaken with increasing income, education levels and years engaged in angling. The majority of anglers support releasing fish (66%) and say that the possibility of keeping the fish is not important (62%). It is crucial to identify those anglers for whom the possibility of keeping fish is important and who do not feel extremely negative about releasing fish. The study found that they represent about 25% of the angling population. These findings help to explain the variation in the invasive impact of the identified motivational-preferential profiles of anglers. Cooperation between the associated angling communities and water managers is crucial. By gathering anglers around their own fishing places, they can implement their own educational and organizational solutions.

Introduction

Water recreation is a very important way of using water for many populations, both in developing and developed countries. Nowadays, recreation is defined as a psychophysiological and social experience, which is conducted in free time (Manfredo et al., 1996). According to research (Metin et al., 2017), recreational angling is one of the main forms of outdoor recreational activities. The number of active anglers ranges from 220 million to 700 million depending on the estimates. Such a difference is caused by limited data, especially in less-developed countries. Participation in recreational fishing activity is growing on a global scale, especially due to the expansion of the middle class in developing countries (Organa, 2017). Estimated participation rates prepared by Arlinghaus et al. (2014) show that anglers constitute about 10.5% of the population in the industrialized world. Recreational angling in the perspective of the present research is considered a male-dominated activity. The average share of women in the angling community from most countries is from 2.0% to 5.0% (Floyd et al., 2006; Reid, 2008). The FAO report shows that in 44 countries there is an absolute lack of women in fishing (including, for example, Finland and Lithuania) (Funge-Smith, 2018). However, according to Toivonen (2008) and Domarkas and Radaitytė (2008) these countries have the highest participation rate of women in angling (34% and 40%, respectively). This proves that the angling data was not verified properly. In many cases, recreational fishing in national-level reports to the FAO has probably been omitted.

Currently, angling is the foundation of economic support for freshwater fish management in many countries, but it is not the only angling impact on the economy. Even with lack or incomplete data about anglers, the profits are noticeable, especially across developed countries. Total angling-related costs are a multi-billion Euros per year industry. Anglers’ expenditures are heterogeneous, including, for example, transport, equipment, accessories and clothing, accommodation and excursions, education and license fees (Navrud, 2001; Kohl, 2002; Toivonen, 2002).

The motivation for outdoor recreation has already been extensively studied (see e.g. Manfredo et al., 1996; Raadik et al., 2010; Budruk and Wilhelm Stanis, 2013). As well, the motivation for angling and diversification of anglers itself has also been extensively studied (see e.g. Fedler and Ditton, 1986, 1994; Schuhmann and Schwabe, 2004; Shramm and Gerard, 2004; Arlinghaus and Mehner, 2004; Copeland et al., 2017). All motivating needs identified in these studies refer to the basic motivations for rest and recreation in the natural environment which have been described by, among others, Dillard and Bates (2011). It follows from these studies that the popularity of angling in the world is a reflection of individual human needs from different social groups in many countries and the main endogenous factor is the need for contact with nature. Various human needs may lead to increased specialization in satisfying them. It is worth noting that recreation specialization can also partly explain the anglers' environmental behavior regarding environmental protection (see, e.g. Salz et al., 2001, Salz and Loomis, 2005; Oh and Ditton, 2008; Hawkins et al., 2009). Oh et al. (2007) and Erickson et al. (2019) found a slightly different hierarchy of needs among tournament anglers and the need for public perception and reputation were more distinct. The essence of recreational angling is the whole ritual of the fishing trip. Its major components include: preparation of gear, choosing a fishing spot and being with friends (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). Nevertheless, in many less-developed countries, the main motive for angling is still obtaining additional food (Funge-Smith, 2018). Fedler and Ditton (1986) identified three groups of anglers with different intensity of consumption needs and they concluded that the importance of relaxation, being outdoors, escaping the daily routine, getting exercise and experiencing natural surroundings generally decreases with increasing consumption preferences of anglers.

Angling is an ecosystem service with huge potential and gaining importance, especially in inland waters (Pope et al., 2016). At the same time, research shows that this environment-based recreation industry seems to be increasingly harmful to the environment itself. According to Lennox et al. (2016), recreational fisheries are a high-pressure factor on fish, causing over-exploitation in waters around the world (Post et al., 2002). Catch-and-release is often considered a solution for over-exploitation of fish in recreational fisheries (Cooke and Schramm, 2007). This assumption is based on the theory that anglers derive the majority of their satisfaction from the fish capture experience rather than from the harvest and consumption of the fish that they catch. Further, it is assumed that catch-and-release fishing is substitutable for catch-and-keep fishing, although this is not always the case (Breadmore et al., 2011).

Studies on angling show that many factors determine its invasiveness and these must be considered regarding nature and habitat protection. These include changes in social attitudes and behaviors, the introduction of non-native (mostly invasive) species, pollution, fish welfare and mortality, the rights of many water users and restoring diversity or reducing over-exploitation (Arlinghaus et al., 2002; Cooke and Cowx, 2006; Pope et al., 2016). It is important to realize that fish resources are declining and this can be stopped only by regulations or the cooperation of anglers (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). At the same time, it should be noted that socioeconomic differences and attitudes are variable in time and can be caused by different traditions, law and economics on the state-level (Arlinghaus et al., 2002). These arguments support the expansion and need to update research among anglers in terms of progressive socio-economic changes in the world. In this respect, one of the more interesting regions is Central Europe. During the several decades of the communist regime, obtaining additional food was a common motivation for fishing in Poland and other Central European countries, including the Czech Republic and Hungary (Bnińska and Wołos, 2008; Navrátil, 2009; Ivancso-Horváth and Ercsey, 2016). Freshwater fisheries were centrally controlled and focused on intensive commercial fishing, especially in Poland (Leopold et al., 1986; Skrzypczak and Mamcarz, 2006). Over 650,000 Polish anglers are registered in the Polish Angling Association, which is the largest association of anglers and leaseholders of waters in Poland. The political and economic transformation revealed the real economic and social importance of angling. The intensity of commercial fishing has decreased several times. The economic profitability of private fishing companies is based mainly on the sale of angling licenses (Bnińska and Wołos, 2008).

The popularity of angling and its specificity as an ecosystem service requires identification of all factors that can explain the relationship between motivations and preferred type of pressure. These factors can accumulate and multiply the risks of damage in fish stocks and the aquatic environment. So far, no comprehensive research has been conducted among anglers which analyses their motivational needs, socio-economic factors, activity and engagement or preferences for the handling of fish.

The main goal of this study was a multidimensional analysis of the relations between socio-economic and demographic factors versus the motivation system for angling and preferences concerning two utilitarian recreational fishing models, i.e. catch-and-release and catch-and-keep. It is hypothesized that the socioeconomic factors can modify the anglers' needs and their intensity and fishing preferences. The second assumption was that in the anglers' community there are groups with different motivational-preferential profiles. To verify these hypotheses the following research questions were formulated: 1) to what extent do socioeconomic and engagement factors explain the variability of motivational needs among anglers; 2) what is the acceptance among anglers for two different models of handling fish; 3) whether there are differences in the intensity of motivation needs between socio-economic groups 4) whether there are relations between motivational needs and preferences for fishing among anglers representing different social groups and whether these relations make it possible to identify categories of anglers potentially differing in the level of invasive impact on fish stocks.

Section snippets

Design of the survey questionnaire and data collection

The survey was constructed in Polish and English versions using the Google Forms platform (https://docs.google.com). The full questionnaire is available in the Table SM1 (Supplementary Material). The final survey contained 41 measures of angling needs and two items to determine preferences in the treatment of caught fish, as well as 13 questions to identify sociodemographic features and the recreational activity of anglers, e.g. age, education level, income, years of engaged in angling and

Summary of responses – socio-demographic characteristics of anglers

The vast majority of the survey respondents were men (near 92.0%), as is shown in Table SM3 (Supplementary Material). The most numerous age category was 25–40 years (nearly 47.9%) and the least numerous age group were respondents < 25 (about 14.0%). The studied group was dominated by anglers with higher (43.2%) and secondary education (41.6%). Most respondents were married (58.1%) and employed (77.9%). Almost half of those surveyed (49.4%) came from villages or towns (up to 25.000 inhabitants).

Determinants of motivational background

The results of the study show that sociodemographic indicators explain the motivation for recreational angling only to a limited extent. At the same time, the intensity of motivations was related to angling preferences and behavior. The anglers' attitudes were most strongly connected with: income and education, frequency of fishing (activity), the costs involved in the activity (costs), membership in clubs (affiliated), years of being engaged in angling (experience), and (indirectly) gender.

Conclusions

The current study demonstrated that there are differences in the intensity of motivation needs among anglers. The relationship between these needs and socioeconomic factors is reflected in the activity and engagement indicators of anglers. It was found that the main endogenous need for experiencing nature is equally important for anglers belonging to different socioeconomic and demographic groups. The second most important need is excitement and self-fulfillment, and socioeconomic predictors

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Andrzej R. Skrzypczak: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Emil A. Karpiński: Data curation, Investigation, Resources, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The survey was carried out thanks to the cooperation with the General Board of the Polish Angling Association and the regional authorities. Its implementation was possible through the involvement of administrators of Internet platforms who disseminated access to the survey. The authors wish to thank all anonymous respondents for their time and commitment. This study was funded by Statutory project No 18.610.010-110.

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