Fluvial Resources and Recreational and Sports Activities

This research aims to reflect on the importance of inland surface waters for the development of local communities and their potential to foster tourism and leisure activities, promoting differentiated tourism products that project this inland tourist destination. It seeks to inquire into new business opportunities, while simultaneously reflecting on ways of controlling uses and issues of preservation and environmental sustainability. The study is developed in the Serra da Estrela territory, framing the destination and establishing an approach to the evolution of recreational fishing and its contributions to the strengthening of tourism and leisure, given the exceptional conditions of water mass supply and its environmental value for an activity that has an intense relationship with nature. The purpose is also to establish lines of research to be followed and methodologies to be implemented for a better knowledge of this activity and identify action strategies for the future.

MODEL FOR MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING OF FISHING PLAYFUL-SPORTS IN THE RIVER MOURO HYDROGRAPHIC BASIN

The Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) has recently carried out work on planning and management of recreational fishing in the area of ​​the Mouro River drainage basin — a mountain watercourse in the North of Portugal (River Hydrographic Basin). Minho) which is born near the place of Lagarto (Lamas de Mouro, Melgaço), in the Peneda-Gerês National Park (PNPG). The model adopted was initially implemented (2008) to manage that activity in the Olo river basin (BH of the Douro river), and this methodology also served as a foundation for creating in 2020 in the Northeast region of Trás-os-Montes (Mente rivers, Rabaçal and Tuela – Vinhais and Bragança) plus three recreational fishing areas. In this context, 13 sampling stations were set up (12 in the Mouro river and 1 in the Sucrasto river), considered representative of a large part of the habitats that make up this study area, where actions were carried out to monitor the ichthyofauna (electrical fishing) and hydromorphological characterization of habitats (River Habitat Survey, RHS). The monitoring of benthic macroinvertebrates was an additional action, recently introduced in this type of work, aimed at improving the biological assessment of water quality and aquatic ecosystems and which is serving as a basis for the preparation of a Master's Thesis. With this study, data was analyzed concerning age, growth, physical condition of the monitored specimens, as well as their relationship with the different types of habitats where they were captured. To detect spatial distribution patterns underlying biotic (species/abundance and species/ages) and environmental data, multivariate methods can be used. As a result of this work, the Ludic Fishing Zone (ZPL) of the Mouro River (and its tributaries) will be created, with the aim of promoting recreational and sport fishing based on more conservationist principles. With this initiative, ICNF intends to guarantee greater protection and sustainability of endogenous aquaculture resources, with particular emphasis on the case of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). This salmonid annually elects a significant part of these continental waters to complete its reproductive phase. However, other studies, in this context, should be developed to better understand the ecology of the species in a country that coincides with its southern limit of distribution in Europe.

Marine recreational fishing at Phuket, Thailand

Recreational fishing can produce visitor satisfaction and generate revenue at some global resorts. Yet, government officials seem reluctant to promote angling on tourism websites. Perhaps this is due to a weak linkage with ecotourism, a term often used by developing countries for attracting international visitors to nature-based settings. To learn about fishing experiences in Phuket, Thailand, this study analyzed 100 angler reviews posted on TripAdvisor, a popular source of user-generated content. Reviews consisted of positive (n=878) and negative (n=237) comments. Promotion of fishing tourism requires a multibenefit approach, more than simply catching fish. Billfish anglers are a promising target market since these ecotourists practice catch-and-release fishing, thus aligning visitor experiences and sustainability with economics.

Fishing capacity of South Baikal in terms of tourism development and limitations on fishing industry

The article considers eco-economic aspects of using the fishing capacity of the basin of South Baikal in the framework of the development of tourism of the coastal territory within Slyudyansky Municipal District of Irkutsk Oblast and within the entire southern Baikal Region. The article proposes to more strongly focus on developing sport and recreational fishing in this most developed area of Lake Baikal. The eco-economic and legal analysis carried out by the authors allows them to conclude that the traditional regulation of the stock of omul in Baikal by determining the total allowable catches and quotas is not effective enough, since it has led to the prohibition of not only industrial but also limitation of sport and recreational fishing for omul. At the same time, there is no reliable data that recreational fishing along the southern coast of Baikal is the reason for the decrease in the total stocks of omul in Baikal. On the contrary, the South Baikal fishing area can become the basis for a more dynamic development of the tourism industry in the region, including such types of it as cognitive tourism, ecological tourism and sports and recreational one. Moreover, it is the South Baikal fishing area and the coastal territory of Slyudyansky Municipal District that can become a testing site for developing more optimal (considering the specifics of various areas of Lake Baikal) ecological approaches to the regulation, rational use and reproduction of the stock of omul in Baikal for the purposes of sport and recreational fishing at Lake Baikal, as well as development of an environmentally friendly tourism industry in the region. The authors propose to review the strategy of fishery development of the stocks of omul at Lake Baikal and remove restrictions on recreational fishing, accompanying this with organizational and legal measures that allow obtaining reliable statistical data on catches. Precisely in this most economically developed area of Lake Baikal it is advisable to practice the organizational and legal mechanisms for the environmentally friendly development of tourist and recreational activities based on the available water bioresources of the unique lake.

Characterizing the Profile of Recreational Fishers Who Share Their Catches on Social Media

Social media may provide information for monitoring recreational fisheries, but several caveats prevent operationalization. Specifically, the fraction and profile of recreational fishers sharing their catches is not known. Our aim was to advance the monitoring capacities of recreational fishing using social media data. We collected data with onsite (face-to-face) survey and online (emails) questionnaires to characterize marine recreational fishers sharing catches on digital platforms (“sharers”) along with other demographic or fishing information. In the online survey we found that 38% of recreational fishers share their catches using digital platforms (including the private messaging platform WhatsApp), but such proportion dropped to 12% when considering only public or semi-public social media (Instagram was the most commonly used platform, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter). A similar pattern was found with the online questionnaire where sharers represented 37% of recreational fishers (including WhatsApp), while such proportion dropped to 21% when considering only public or semi-public social media. In general, sharers were more avid (24 and 35 yearly fishing trips for onsite and online survey, respectively) compared to non-sharers (18 and 31 yearly fishing trips). Sharers also spent more money on each fishing trip (on average 26 and 31 euro for onsite and online survey, respectively) than non-sharers (on average 21 and 28 euro for onsite and online survey, respectively), but they had similar chances of catching something. However, for fishers with catches, the harvest per unit effort of sharers was higher than that of non-sharers (0.4 and 0.5 kg/h with respect to 0.3 and 0.4 kg/h, for onsite and online survey, respectively). Moreover, recreational fishers that caught trophy, iconic, or emblematic species were more inclined to share their catches. This study represents an important advancement for integrating social media data into the monitoring of recreational fishing.