Preliminary Results on the Impacts of Environmental Perturbations on Commercial Fishermen

Harden M. M. (harden_mm@wlf.state.la.us), T. L. Romaire (romaire_tl@wlf.state.la.us), and J. G. Hanifen (hanifen_j@wlf.state.la.us), Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, P.O. Box 98000, Baton Rouge, LA 70898-9000; 225/765-2382; FAX 225/765-2624

In the spring of 1998 the Department began the large-scale study, “Monitoring the Effects of Environmental Perturbations on Commercial Fishermen”. This project, funded by NOAA, consists of a logbook survey and an environmental monitoring program. The logbook survey involves the collection of trip specific information: fishing conditions and location, landings, trip-related expenses and vessel expenses. The environmental monitoring program consists of 10 offshore sampling trips per year and collects profiles with a multi-parameter sensor for conductivity, temperature, depth and dissolved oxygen, and bottom water samples at up to 40 stations. The goal of these sampling trips is to identify the hypoxic fronts and further relate this environmental data directly to fishery effort determined by the logbook survey. Analysis of this full year of logbook collections describes commercial fishing effort and provides comparisons between the occurrences of hypoxia in the 1998 and 1999 summers environmental monitoring programs’ sampling, and documents the “Dead Zone” in the study area. Data collected on the annual SEAMAP cruises are also utilized. Grant NA76FK0429 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funded this work. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its sub-agencies.

Copyright © 1999
Texas Chapter of the American Fisheries Society
Last modified: 03/03/04 04:15:38 PM