Collaboration toward conservation: the recreational sport fishermen case

Recreational sport fishing is a very popular activity along the Maltese coastline, with a number of sport fishing clubs regularly organising fishing competitions for their members. Effective management of recreational fishing, however, requires accurate monitoring and research to best address and mitigate its impact. For this reason, good collaboration between anglers and conservation scientists is a basic requirement and, to this effect, researchers from the Conservation Biology Research Group from the University of Malta (CBRG-UoM), led by Conservation biologist Dr Adriana Vella, have been monitoring fishing competitions around the Maltese coast for many years.

During this collaboration, it has been observed that, whenever possible, all fishing clubs are embracing the catch-andrelease practice. All fish caught during a competition are kept alive in keep nets and released at the end of the competition. The use of keep-nets by anglers during competitions has also increased due to greater enforcement by club committees, with some clubs opting for more venues that allow better keep-net use.

Sandra Agius Darmanin is one such dedicated researcher, supported by the CBRG-UoM research team and the Biological Conservation Research Foundation (BICREF) volunteers, who have been working with the various fishing clubs and the National Federation of Sports Anglers Malta (NFSAM) to understand this impact and the mitigation measures necessary to reduce such impact. This is being carried out as part of an original PhD research project under the supervision of Dr Vella, and is focusing on coastal fish species biology and recreational fishing activities in order to identify effective conservation practices and recommendations.

Discussions with the NFSAM, the body that oversees all local sport fishing clubs, have resulted in a number of measures to reduce the catch of undersized juvenile fish and fish mortality rates. The effectiveness of such measures is currently being monitored and preliminary findings of this project have already been presented at a number of conferences abroad, including the Congress of the Mediterranean Science Commission (CIESM) and The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Such research and collaboration for the conservation of marine biodiversity is essential for achieving the various biodiversity conservation and marine strategy framework directive obligations and also allows those involved to learn from the scientific process while working closely with conservation scientists. This is a positive and necessary way of ensuring the effective sustainable management of this growing sport.

Further information on the projects of the CBRG-UoM is available by contacting adriana.vella@um.edu.mt