Network Session - From stock assessments to offshore wind planning: Working toward enhanced utilization of fishery dependent information

Fishers develop a unique understanding of ocean dynamics as they observe and interact with the marine environment throughout their careers at sea. Observing the ocean through the lens of commercial harvest and being at sea through different seasons gives fishers insight into ecosystem trends and relationships that may not be apparent to scientists or managers. Thus, they are able to contribute both experiential knowledge, as well as more tangible fishery dependent data about their catches and the marine environment. While the experiential knowledge of fishers is acknowledged by the scientific community, it remains challenging to incorporate this information in fisheries assessments and other scientific products. Fishery dependent data has been brought into the scientific process to a greater degree more recently, but full utilization of this information remains a stubborn issue. Because of this, there is a need for sustained work across regions to share and discuss case studies and best practices for effectively bringing these valuable sources of information into the scientific process. For this network session we shared case studies and discussed best practices for collecting, summarizing, and applying different types of fisher’s knowledge across ICES ecoregions. For example, fishers’ and processors’ knowledge is being increasingly used to inform catch-per-unit effort indices in stock assessments, fishers’ logbooks are being used to estimate the economic impact of offshore wind energy development, and recent research has leveraged fishers’ ecological knowledge to identify oceanographic drivers and climate impacts on resource species. These case studies highlighted projects that engage the fishing community in answering research questions about oceanographic dynamics (Squid Squad, USA), ecosystem dynamics (ICES WKIrish, EU), and ocean use, including offshore wind energy development (ROSA, USA). During this network session we gathered input on how fishers’ experiential and quantitative data are collected, stored, and applied to different scientific products and processes in the ICES ecoregions. We discussed challenges that currently prevent each type of fishery dependent information (experiential knowledge, and quantitative fishery data) from being used to its full potential. We then highlighted the types of applications that have been successful for each type of data, if there are lessons that can be learned from these successes, and the transferability of strategies among information types.