Abstract In this essay, we explore the idea that slow social change may cause degradation of open access equilibrium in recreational fisheries. An existing bioeconomic model illustrates how three quantities fisheries social–ecological system—the marginal cost fishing effort, catchability, and relative importance catch effort to angler utility—influence fish abundance. We speculate directional c...

Ecosystem assessments of fisheries based only on survey data will often have to use surveys that were designed historically for special purposes, e.g. for assessing abundances of two or three target species, or for tuning VPAs. An important question then is whether the previously collected data can provide informative time series of abundance indices and other state indicators for a wider range...

The stock assessment model described here is based on Sullivan et al.’s (1990) CASA model. CASA is entirely length-based with population dynamic calculations in terms of the number of individuals in each length group during each year. Age is largely irrelevant in model calculations. Unlike many other length-based stock assessment approaches, CASA is a dynamic, non-equilibrium model based on a f...