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THE ROLE AND PLACE OF SPORTFISHINGIN WATER-BASED RECREATIONA.L.W. TuomiPublished online: 23 Jan 2013.

To cite this article: A.L.W. Tuomi (1982) THE ROLE AND PLACE OF SPORTFISHING IN WATER-BASEDRECREATION , Canadian Water Resources Journal / Revue canadienne des ressources hydriques, 7:3,53-68, DOI: 10.4296/cwrj0703053

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Canadian Water Resource Journall

Vol. 7, No. 3, 1982

THE ROLE AND PLACEIN

I,IATER-BASED

OF SPORTFISHING

RECREATION

Dy

A.L.W. Tuomi2

ABSTRACT: MosL of Canada's sportfisheries take place infresh-waLers which are almost L2y" of Canadars combined tot.alarea of inland and ocean waLers within the fisheries zones.comparative 1980 sport and commercial fisheries landings aregiven by jurisdiction, as are severar measures of rhe economicdimensions of canadars sportfisheries as based on results of thenationally-coordinated 1980 survey of sportfishing in canada.Key issues in comparing the economic role and importanE ofsportfishing with other water-based recreation are reviewed.Both cornpetitive and conflicting clairns on the sportfisheriesand their habitat are discussed, with particular refereoce Eoacid rain. The kinds of scientific and economic data andstrategies to jusEify the imposition of cost measures forterminating and/or mitigating acid rain impacts on fisheries areoutlined.

RESUME: La p6che sportive au Canada se pratique prlncipalementdans 1es eaux douces qui constituent environ douze pour-cent deltensemble de zones de p6ches int6rieures et oc6aniquescanadiennes. On trouvera dans cet article des donn6es compara-par centre de juridiction des r6coltes des pGches sportives etcommerciales ainsi que diverses autres mesures des dimensions6conomiques de 1a p6che sportive au Canada bas6es sur ltinventairenational de 1980 de la p6che sportive. Lrauteur passe en revue1es questions-c16s qui reviennent quand on compare 1e r6le6conomique et 1 I importance de 1a p6che sportive aux autresactivit6s r6cr6atives aquatiques. 11 dlscute 1es actlvlt6s quientrent en comp6tition voire en conflit avec 1a p6che sportive

1_. .'rhl's Paper was PresenEed to the Canadian Water ResourcesAssociation Conference on Water-Based Recreation Issues,Conflicts, Strategies, June 1982

-Senior Advisor Recreational Fisheries, Economic policyBranch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans

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etles habitats fauniques, avec une pr6occupation particuliErepour le problEme des pluies acides. Ltauteur passes finalementen revue 1es divers types de donn6es scientifiques et6conomiques aj-nsi que les strat6gies pour justifier lrirnposltionde rnesures financiE.res en vue dt6liminer ou de r6duire lesr6percussions des pluies acides sur les p6cheries.

INTRODUCTION

On the strength of some sagets observation thaE everyone isa fishermen at heart, I feel among kindred spirits in addressingthe subject of the role and place of sportfishing in water-basedrecreation.

Because I have approached Ehe subject as a senior t'advisor"rather than a disciplinary specialist, I have sEarted by drawingwidely on the knowledge of others in identifying fivecharacEeristics of the role of sportfishing. Then, and thanksto the availability of near-final results from the 1980 Surveyof Sportfishing in Canada, I have expanded the nexE section tocover both the 'rplacert and the economic importance of Canadatssportfisheries. In the final two sections, ranking issues andconfLicts are identified, followed by Ehe straLegies availablefor dealing with them.

Role of Sportfishing

The wordttrole" in Ehis instance was carefully consideredbecause its dictionary definition is short and apE; and, moreimportantly, because fishing for pleasure has played a

continuingttrole" in the life of ur,an from prehistoric timesright to the present. One can go even further, and say thatsportfishing has been, and is, a part of life - and whaE livingmeans to nany - almosE universally around the world, wheneverand wherever the basics of survival are assured and leisure anddiscrelionary choice is possible.

At rhis juncture some one may point to the mooted oceanorigins of all life, the age old importance of fish as food andin religion and culture, and then conclude thaE Ehese arelinkages between rnan and fish, and wich fishing generally,rather Ehan with sportf ishing per se. I.Ihile this neiEher cannor is denied, the role played by sportfishing is impressiveeven wiEhin this seerningly narrolrer conEext.

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ln the arts field alone, no other outdoor recreationalpursuit, other than hunting, has a longer or richer heritage or,I would add in an admission of my bias, a greater relevance tothe concerns of this conference.

Over 300 years ago , Izaak Walton set the stage when he saidttangling is an arttt. He then proceeded to warn the millions ofreaders to the 400 or so ediLions of his classic, The CompleatAnqler, that "in writing of it (angling) I have made myself arecreation of a recreaEion'r. John Buchan, the noted author(bett.er known to most Canadian as Governor-General LordTweedsmuir) reinforced this elitist viewpoint in hisintroduction Eo the 1956 Oxford Universiry edition of TheCompleat Angler when he said the book 'runfolds the heart andsoul of Lhe angler - a man loves books as well as his art, whosees nature through the glass of culture, the to\rnsman and thegentlemenrr.

It is appropriate now to identify the first of the fivedistinguishing characLerisEics of the role of sportfishing. Bydefinition, its basic purpose is, and always has been,recreation; not food, profiE, competition, the avoidance ofwork, or Lhe myriad oEher sins and shortcomings that cenEuriesof spouses, cynics and bruised later-day fisheries managers havehad reason to see in and identify with sportfishing. In theseLroubled times, it is useful to add the inplicit corollary thatsportfishing is a peaceful use of the resource. In the face ofwhat may be disbelief and reactions to the contrary, this is not.to say that sportfishing is necessarily either a quiet orargument-free paragon of activities. On the contrary,sportfishing has for centuries engendered loud and oftenirreconciLable debate, both between anglers as often as withcorcnercial fishermen and many other interests. Nevertheless,and not excluding these'twars of words'r that have been dutifullyrecorded and fill libraries, no physical wars have been or are,I believe, ever likely to be fought over this use of theresource. Sportfishing is, first and foremost, a peaceful,recreaLional use of rhis water-based resource.

For those still harbouring reservations, Marion Clawson,one of the deans of outdoor recreation economics, casE furthercareful light on the subject when he outlined the secondcharacEeristic of the sport fisheries I role. Clawson ( 1965)said,'rI think we can state rhat fishing often provides thefocus or the raison dretre for the outdoor recreation experienceas a whole, and thus has unusual importance.rr Having thus puEsportfishing center stage rdith respect to outdoor recreation,Clawson then comnitted a further "heresv" when he knocked out

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the props from under the foundation of rhose fisheries managers,biologists and social scientists who persist in seeingsportfishing through the commercial fisheries' prism ofcatch-per-unit effort, numbers of fish caughL and kept. Clawsondid rhis when he said, "One might even ask: are fish necessaryfor fishing?" He then followed this up by discussingcaLch-and-release and the tenuous links between catch and theoverall recreational experience that is sought and enjoyed.

The third characteristic is subtler but no less imporLant,especially in the world we now face. Sportfishing has rnany

facets and apart from the enjoyment it provides, iE has forcenturies relieved stress for boLh the lowly and the rnighty.The anglers who spend thousands of dollars to find solace,renewal and recreation in Canadats arctic waters are drawn thereby more than fish. Roderick llaig-Brown boEh generalized andpersonalized rhis in the closing lines of his posthumouslypublished book when he asked, "The value of all? It is worth asmuch or as little as people find in it: as little as an houror two of happiness in a srnall child's day (if that is lirtle)or as much as a long lifetime of happiness and sophisticat.edcontentment,rt Then he cast his net further by adding, t'This ishappiness in massive amounEs, harming no one, benefitingeveryone . . . and the pleasure and happiness of bright fish inbright waters has deep meaning for many people who are notanglers at all."

At an anoLher plane, Herbert Hooverrs observations on thisparticular matter nay well have gained him a gentler measure ofirnmortality, when he was quoted in the Ontario Game andFisheries monEhly bullecin (f937) as saying, "Fishing is not so

much getting fish as it is a state of mind and a lure of enticethe human soul to refreshment." Because, ttFish will not bite inthe presence of representatives of the press," he sEated,"Fishing is thus the sole avenue now IefE to a public man Lhathe may escape to his own thoughts; may find relief from thepneuilultic hammer of personal contacts; may find refreshment ofsoul in the babble of dripping water, with the satisfaction thatthe fish will not be influenced eiEher bv headlines or thetext .'l

Over 30 years later, Arnold Gingrich (1971) attested toHooverts contribution when he noted that rrHerbert Hoover said it(fishing) was for fun, and to wash your soul,ttand thenmaintained his own fisherman's objectivity by adding, "I donttsay he (Hoover) was altogether wrong, buE I canrt forget that he

was less than altogether right about a number of things.tt

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Gingricht s wordsfourth characteristicttFishing has anotherof a litmus paper, towhether this land ofas the night the day,won't much longer be

)l

also serve adrnirably to spell out theof the sportfisheries' role when he said,

dimension. It can also serve as somethingshow by t.he colorat.ion of its condition

ours is sick or healthy. For it fo1lows,thaL water that isnrt fit for a trout

fit for us.rr

In the besr tradition of sportfisheries philosopher-writers, Gingrich elevated the preceding observation to theparamount public policy level it is today when he broadened hisfield to include fauna and said,rrTrout and ducks, no matter howimporLant they may be to some people, are of course of trivialsignificance against the concerns of the body politic. Howeverthey are both symptomatic, in that their vanishing or theirflourishing is a direcr indication of which way the welfare ofthe whole human race is headed. In this light theirsignificance is no less than cosmic.tt

Now, a scant ll years later, tuTo threats, of the kind ofGingrich t.alked about, have made fish, ducks and the wholeaquatic ecosystem inro threshold resources - and victims - ofthe battle against a rising tide of pollution thac isinternational in scope and concern. The more familiar of thesethreats is water pollution, most noticeably identified in thecase of mercury, bu! now much expanded into dioxins, pCBrs, andthe whole witchestbrew of new compounds that are coming outdaily and finding their way into and interacting with whaL hasalready been disposed of in our wat.er ways.

The related rhreat, of a particular concern to fisheries,is airborne. Technically it is labelled as the ttlong rangetransport of aerial pollutantsr' (LRTAP), and is more familiarlyknown as acid rain. The literature on the subject with respectto fisheries is already considerable. And while it will bereferred to again later, it should not - from a public policyviewpoint - be overlooked how woefully long it has taken forthis threat to most Trater-based recreation to be recognized.The popular name for it - acid rain - was',coined" in 1872 j.n aprophetic book by R.A. Snith entitled, Air and Rain: theReginnings of a chemjcal c.limarorogy. The foliage devastationaround Sudbury has provided a shock Lo first-time travellersthrough that city for decades; and rhe specific fisheries irnpactof acid rain has been a matter of public concern in sweden sincer975.

The fifth characteristic of the role of Canadats sportfishindustry is irs size and its potential for economic wealth

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generation and enjoyment far beyond Lhat which is generallyrecognized by the Canadian public. My colleague Keith Brickley,staListician par excellence, has given me some near-finaI,pre-publicalion figures from the 1980 nationally coordinatedSurvey of Sportfishing in Canada. These provide some of themore relevant sport.fisheries dimensions outlined in the nextsection.

Because the Quebec component of the 1980 survey wasdifferent in several respects, data in the next section includeestimaLes for Quebec where so indicated.

Place and ImporEance

Water-based recreation is largely a function of water area.In this respect, Canada has the potential to be a world leader.The extent of Canadars freshwater treasure-Lrove is depicted inFigure 1, which shows that these freshvlaters are 11.62 percencof the total area of Canada's combined freshwaLer and oceanwaters within its 200 mile zone. The percentage distribution offreshwater in Canada is given in Figure 2.

In terms of popularity, sportfishing continues to rank nearthe top in outdoor recreation and is easily the leadingconsumptive, renewable resource - based form of outdoorrecreation in most. industrialized countries. In 1980, well oversix million people of all ages rrwent fishing" in Canada. Ofthis number, about. 5.2 milLion l^tere 16 years of age and olderand about one million were visiting anglers from othercountries. In terms of overall participation, one out of fiveCanadians fished in 1980.

As an industry in its own right, anglers spent and invested$2.4 billion of Canada in 1980. This expendirure wasattributable in whole or part to sportfishing. Anglers spent$1.1 billion on such Ehings as food, lodging, travel costs, boatoperations and fishing supplies. They also invested $1.3billion on major durables such as boats, motors, specialvehicles, as well as on land and cottages. Obviously rnuch ofthis investment is used for many other outdoor recreationalpursuits beside sportfishing. Ilowever, in response to theamount of this expenditure related to sportfishing, anglersestimated that $694 million of this investment in durables andproperuy was used for this pursuit. Accordingly, anglers spentand invested an estimated $1.8 billion on sportfishing in Canadain 1980.

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The resource-based sportfishery is also important to theeconomy because the esLimated expenditures and investment ofanglers roughly doubles the gross economic activity generared byCanadars fishery resource. In 1975, the wholly aEtributableexpendicures and investment of anglers was $I billion comparedto the commercial fisheries marketed value of 5712.8 million.Thanks largely to higher prices and landings, the commercialfisheries marketed value rose to $1.7 billion in 1980 ascompared with the $1.8 billion in who11.y atrributableexpenditures and inveslment made by anglers. The aggregatedeconomic activity generated by both the sport and commercialfisheries is shown by province and territory in Figure 3.

Both fisheries industries, sport and commercial, are worldleaders in terms of export earnings of foreign exchange. In1980 , comrnerc ia1 fisheries exports were $ I .3 bil lion. Duringthe same year, a million visiting anglers, mostly from theUnited States, spent $300 miflion in Canada - a total thataccounted f.ot 97. of Canada's total foreign exchange revenuesfrom tourism. Dollars aside, one has only to look at ourtourism literature aimed at other countries to realize howclosely sportfishing is idenrified with Canada's internaLionalimage, as an immense land of productive and yet relativelyunder-utilized and unpolluted waters. This is an image which,if properly lived-up-to, will reinforce Canadats competitiveposition in lhe world, as a place to live, a place to visit, andas a country where fisheries serve boLh body and soulbeneficiallv.

In all Ehis, ic is too easy to overlook the sporEfisherieslconrribution to Canadars domestic food supply. Anglersestimated they consumed some 45,200 metric tonnes of rhe fishthey landed and kept in 1980. This, of course, is smallcompared with the combined total of Canada's commercial sporccatch. But because some 701l of the commercial catch (of whichabout 95% is taken in ocean waters) is exported, the 45,200metric tonnes caught and consumed by anglers was 39.5% of theLotal consumption of domesticaLly produced finfish caught by thesport and commercial fisheries in Canada in 1980.

When asked about their existing investment in sportfishing,anglers (exclusive of Quebec) reported thaE Lhe 1980 marketvalue of their fishing gear and equipment used solely insportfishing was $3.1 billion. They reporred they owned 1.3million pleasure boats with an estimated l98O m:rket value of$3.1 billion. Though Ehe kinds of boats and rheir unit valuesvaried considerably, Lheir percentage overall usage forsportfishing ranged from a low of 407. it Ontario to 6L7. in Nova

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Scotia (see Figure 4). The converse of this, in a confirmationof Clawsonrs observation, is that the resE of the time, thesesame boats provided both access to and a basis for otherwater-based recreation.

A further insight into pleasure boat ownership and usagewas possible in rhe case of Ontario. In the absence of aresident angling licence, the 1980 Ontario survey ofsportfishing took the form of a population survey. As a result,it is estimated, on the basis of this survey, that there areabout 936,000 pleasure boats in the province. They have anesLimated 1980 marker value of $1.9 billion and are used 227" ofthe time for sportfishing and 787 of the time for otherrecreation. lncluded in these totals, are 634,000 angler-ovnedboats with an estimated f980 market value of $f.2 billion.

Issues and Conflicts

WhiLe ir is a "peacefultt use of the resource, sporEfishingis instituEionally prone to contiouiog conflict, and oftenacrimonious argument - and with good reason. This stems fromthe turn-of-the century Court int.erpretations of the BNA Actwhich led all provinces but Ewo (New Brunswick and Quebec), toconvert Eheir freshr^rater fisheries into what economists callcorunon-property, i.e., publicly owned fisheries which everyoneis enritled to use subject only to conservation regulations andwidely divergent licensing requirements.

The innumerable issues and conflicts Ehat occur as a resultcan, however, be put inLo two categories; those specificallyrelated to the sporEfishing, resource and those shared with otherout.door recreation.

StarEing first with the specific resource issues, there aremounLing problems peculiar to all sportfisheries as such. Forexample, in the face of the rising costs of providingsporffishing opportuniEy, how much public invesEment shouldLhere be made in the absence of realistic user charges (theincome transfer issue)? At a second level, there is thecontinuous issue of overalL resource allocaEion. who should getthe fish - Natives, subsistence fishermen, commercial fishermenoperaLing within the market system, or anglers operating exempLfrom pricing in relaLion to value received? A third levelinvolves the issue of protecEing and justifying the fisherieshabitat. This issue cones back to the public policy quesEion ofthe allocation of natural and environmental resources Eo rbestuse'r. The perennial example is the damming and diversion ofrivers for power - too often at the expense of anadromous

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species Iike the salmons, which are thereby denied access totheir spawning grounds.

Depending on the definitions chosen, I suggest that thereis a fourth level of conflict in which man and fish share contrnoncause because their interwoven environmental framework of lifeis under assault. Here, the reference is limited to the kindsof pollution currently besr illustrated by acid rain. Thoughall of the scientific inter-relationships of rhis phenomenonare not completely pinned-down to everyoners saLisfaction, thetrends are such that it is already abundantly clear that thevulnerable fisheries are a crucial part of mants own ttearlyrdarning system'r against this threat to life and well-being as weknow it now.

The second broad category of conflicts and issuesrepreseots a challenge common to all outdoor recreation.Despite all the surveys carried out, the welter of dataavailable, and the varying adversary st.ances and viewpointsespoused, Ehe question still persists in our materialisticsociety; what is outdoor recreation worth to Canada and toCanadians, and rrhere does it fit within our overall framework ofdecision-making? Is it an essential re-creative component ofproduction, or does it represent a desirable but non-essentialform of consumption by society?

This guestion is largely rhetorical, but I suggest ic is areal one and a continuing one, and neiEher I, nor anyone elsefor that matter, should really expect any definitive answer - ora better one Lhan Aristotle reportedly gave centuries ago whenhe said, ttNature requires LhaL we should be able, not only towork weIl, but to use leisure well. Leisure is the firsrprinciple of all action and so leisure is better than work andis for the sake of work, so work, in turn, is for the sake ofleisure." Yet within fisheries, this question is a continuingissue that has to be faced by all governments spending publicmonies on fisheries provision and then making'rbest usertdecisions respecting exploitarion between priced commercialoutput and essentially unpriced recreational use.

Sport Fisheries Strategies

The challenges facing fisheries are both complex andimmense. llowever with respect to the sporLfisheries, twostrategies have been evolved which have produced results andhave so far stood the test of Lime.

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The first of these stralegies came about a decade ago when

a practical answer was needed to a pracrical problem Prior tothe 1975 Survey of Sportfishing, Lhere were no authoritativedata on the size, value or dynamics of Canadars sportfisheries.So at the first of what are now called our Canadian SportFisheries Conferences, the federal and provincialrepresentatives of Canadats sportfisheries agencies inattendance unanimously agreed that developing basic data on allsportfisheries had first priority. This led to the provincesoffering Lheir support and asking for federal leadership in thecooperative planning and conduct of the requirednaLionally-coordinated surveys and analyses. From this evolvedthe basic strategy of federal leadership in this field based on

Ehe support of, consultation with, and the consent and

cooperation of all the provinces, the territories, and thefederal regional offices of fisheries n€Inagement.

What. is probably unique about these cooperativefederal-provincial programs was best expressed by Donald D.Tansley, Deputy Minister of the Department of Fisheries and

Oceans, when he referred to ic in his address at the 1981

Canadian Sport Fisheries Conference - t'We have all beenparticularly impressed by the fact that so much good andproductive work has come about without red-tape and withoutrigid structure. The organizations that meet here have norkedtogether without, heaven forbid, needing a minsterially-negotiaLed and signed federal-provincial agreement as the basisfor cooperation."

The second strategy relates to leadership and sEems fromthe fact. that Lhe Department of Fisheries and Oceans has both a

national leadership role as well. as the responsibility formanaging all ocean sportfisheries - notably the salmonsportfisheries in the tidal waters of British Columbia.Consequently, as both a leader and a ttdoer", it is incumbent onthe DeparLment t.o perform as well as lead. Among other things'this requires taking the initiarive, developing integratedeconomic resource management hypotheses and theory, and thensetting a leadership example by both cooperating with others and

by demonstrating how the resulrant methods and Ehe guidelinescan be applied.

Second only to the continuing developrnent of comprehensivesportfisheries statisrical systems and data, there is federal-provincial agreement Ehat the next priority is to arrive at an

agreement on how sportfisheries can be valued and compared on

the same basis in relation to net economic yield are all orherrenewable resource uses. While the approach to this is

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currently focussed on the tourism aspects, acid rain providesthe most compelling incentive for arriving at an authoritativeeconomic evaluation of Canadats sportfisheries. These valuesare needed so fhat the economic, benefit-cost case can be madeto miEigare and/or stop the devastaLing ravages of acid rain onvu lnerab le fisheries .

I,Ihile there is certainty with respect to the economic casethat can be meds for the protection of Canadats fisheries, noillusions are entertained respecting the difficulties associaLedwith some of the steps which have to be taken. Obviously, thenatural and social scientists who are in this field must agreeon the specifics of the damage entailed, how it can be measured,and how it can be expressed in economic terms as required bothfor negotiations and for justifying the benefit-cosE impositionof the cost measures required for stopping and/or mitigafingharmful emissions in Canada as well as elsewhere.

Brief though this outline is of what is required to combatacid rain, I wouLd conclude by saying thal Canadarssportfisheries are in the unevitable position of being thethreshold resource. If the fisheriest economic case forenvironmental protection against such fa1l-out can be made, everyCanadian with a stake in our rdater resources, (i.e. allCanadians) will automatically benefit. This being so, a third,reciprocal sErat.egy should be considered, one that can linksportfisheries endeavours and experience in this field with allother r^rater-based recreation interests in the proEection andcontinued beneficial use of Canadars waters and relatedre source s .

REFERENCES

Arnerican Fisheries Society. Forthcoming.Symposium. Raymond E. Johnson (ed.)

Acid Rain/FisheriestrlashingLon.

of Game & FisheriesAnonymous. May , 1931Monthly Bulletin

0ntario DepartmentToronto.

Clawson, Marion. 1959. Methods of Measuring Ehe Demand andValue of Outdoor Recreation. R.F.F. Washington.

Clawson, Marion. L965. "Economic Aspects of Sportfishing."Can. Fish Report No. 4. Ottana. pp. 12 - 24.

Clawson, Marion and Jack L. Knetsch. 1966. Economics ofOutdoor Recreation. R.F.F. John Hop. press. 328 pp.

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Fisheries and Environment Canada. I978. "Highlights: Surveyof Sportfishing in Canada." Rec. Fish Manage. 8u11.Sportfishing in Canada. Otta\.ta. 6 p.

Gingrich, Arnold. I97L. The Joys of Trout. Crown PublishersInc. N.Y. 275 pp,

Ilaig-Brown, Roderick. 1980. Bright Waters, Bright Fish.Douglas & t'lclntyre Ltd. Vancouver, B.C. in Associationwith Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian GovernmentPublishing CenLre. 140 pp.

Pelletier, Jacques, Marcel Lacasse and Jean-Luc Ducharme. 1981.Recreational Use of Fish and Wildlife Resources in Quebec.Ministere du Loisir, de la Chasse et de la Peche. Que.12 p.

Smith, R.A. 1872. Air and Rain: The Beginniogs of a ChemicalClirnatology. Longmans, Green. London.

The InternaEion Atlantic Salmon Foundation. 1981. Acid Rainand the Atlantic Salmon. Lee Sochasky (ed.) St. Andrews,N.B. L74 pp.

Walton, 7zaak. 1653. The Conpleal Angler. Oxford Univ. Press.1956. London. 363 o.

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