Lecture: Stephen Bortone, Ph.D.
Director, Minnesota Sea Grant College Program
Professor of Biology
211 Washburn Hall
2305 East Fifth Street
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota 55812 USA
Tel: 218.726.8710
Mob: 218.390.0906
FAX: 218.726.6556
sbortone@umn.edu
www.seagrant.umn.edu
A Pathway to Resolving an Old Dilemma: The Lack of Artificial Reefs in Fisheries Management
An often cited and highly touted feature of artificial reefs is that they are used in fisheries management to improve fisheries. This premise was, in fact, the reason for holding the very first CARAH in 1974. Despite this premise, artificial reefs continue to play almost no role in the regular management of any fishery. While there are some notable, but limited, examples by disparate management agencies to there have been few attempts to include artificial reefs in the management strategy of an overall management plan.
Part of the reason for the exclusion of artificial reefs as a component of fishery management plans is the lack of data that convincingly demonstrate the efficacy of artificial reefs to fishery managers. The logic model adopted here promotes the determination of program goals and objectives based on available resources to conduct activities that result in outputs that assure short, medium and long-term outcomes relevant to specific fisheries. In tandem, the logic model is expanded into a conceptual model that allows the evaluation of features of artificial reefs using a hypothesis-based approach. If followed, this procedure should provide the data necessary to allow managers to satisfy program goals that will lead to improved fisheries management.
The program objectives can be several and include:
1) reduced natural mortality,
2) reduced fishing mortality,
3) increased survivorship,
4) increased fitness, and
5) improved essential fish habitat.
The conceptual model also helps reef managers to partition reef attributes and biological attributes into manageable components that allow for efficient testing of hypotheses related to factors often controllable by managers. Adopting a scientifically rigorous method to evaluate artificial reefs as potential components of a fishery management plan will give direction to future research on the utility of artificial reefs. More importantly, it will encourage fishery managers to include artificial reefs as fishery management alternatives.
Willian J. Lindberg
