AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

This PhD study employed two fisheries surveys and an agent-based model to characterise, in the context of specialisation theory, the behaviours and motivations of non-avid and avid fishers among a diverse group of recreational boat fishers. Broadly, specialisation theory, which relates to the field of human dimensions research, dictates that groups of recreational fishers fit along a continuum of behaviour or ‘specialisation’, from occasional, novice fishers to avid and highlyexperienced fishing specialists. Furthermore, this theory considers that fishers may be characterised according to such attributes as frequency of participation, species targeted, fishing locations and fishing gears, motivations for going fishing, preferences for resource management, as well as various other attributes. In one survey, a sample of recreational fishers living near Perth, in Western Australia, was randomly-selected from a database containing details of recreational fishing boat licence holders in that state. Selected anglers were interviewed by phone using the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) technique. Fishers were chracterised as either non-avid or avid, based on levels of participation rates, an approach consistent with many fisheries surveys. The phone survey demonstrated that Perth boat fishers are typically male, often 45-59 y and mainly target inshore, easy-to-catch ‘bread and butter’ species, such as whiting species and Australian herring. Anglers typically use rod and lines for fishing and often revisit areas in which they have experienced previous fishing success. Ownership of Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) systems was high among all surveyed boat fishers. However, compared with non-avid fishers, avid fishers were, as hypothesised according to specialisation theory, more likely to use these devices for storing fishing locations (and also for storing a greater number of locations compared to non-avid fishers). Moreover, as hypothesised, avid fishers were more likely than non-avid fishers to go fishing on a normal weekday rather than on a weekend or public holiday, presumably to avoid periods of congestion at boat ramps. Unlike most fisheries surveys, those undertaken for this study asked a range of questions relating to movements of boat fishers when fishing. Surveyed fishers generally travelled small distances offshore (< 5 km), visited few fishing locations (≤ 4), and typically moved ≤ 3 km between their first and second fishing location, usually moving because they were not catching any fish. The hypothesis that avid fishers would be more likely than non-avid fishers to move more frequently between fishing locations when catch rates were low was not supported by the available data, however, as the durations of fishing trips were relatively short (~3.5 h) and fishers only moved a few times during each trip. It was able to be shown, however, that avid fishers are more likely to move when they receive a low fish ‘bite rate’. A second survey, in the form of a written questionnaire, was…