Ethnographic Interviews of New England Groundfish Fishermen on Adaptation and Transition

The implementation of Amendment 16 to the fishery's Federal Management Plan in May 2010 implemented catch share management in the form of sectors. In addition, since 2012, there have been severe reductions in catch limits for key species, such as Atlantic cod. Fishery economic performance reports for the Northeast Multispecies Fishery produced by NMFS' Office of Science and Technology (the National Catch Share Report) and the NEFSC Social Science Branch (Final Reports on the Performance of the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery produced annually since 2010) evaluate the performance of commercial fishing vessels with a limited access groundfish permit that have remained active. However, little is known about the ways in which fishermen, particularly those who have traditionally actively targeted groundfish, are making decisions in response to changes in the biological and management conditions in the fishery. In addition, little is known about the economic and social impacts on fishermen who are no longer actively fishing or may be operating at a loss. The project portfolio contains text files of approximately 60 ethnographic interviews with current and former participants in New England's Northeast Multispecies Fishery (the groundfish fishery) conducted in 2013 and 2014 in several New England ports. Interviewees include commercial fishermen, managers of Northeast Multispecies Sectors, and other leaders in the commercial fishing community. Some interviews have been recorded and transcribed. In some cases, audio recording was not possible due to the noise level at the interview site; for these interviews, extensive notes were taken by the interviewer(s). Coding of these interviews in NVivo, a software designed to analyze qualitative information is ongoing. The project portfolio also contains an Excel spreadsheet that contains a table with selected characteristics for each interviewee (e.g. fisherman's age, marital status, number of dependents, years of fishing experience, etc.) (see InPort ID #27637).

This data collection improves understanding of the decision making process of groundfish fishermen, with a focus on the decision to continue or transition out of active groundfishing. It seeks to enable identification of patterns in decision making processes and adaptive responses across fishermen. The data collection also contains qualitative information about the specific economic and social impacts of catch shares and quota reductions on participants in the groundfish industry, and how management decisions may impact fishermen’s perceptions of available alternatives.