AUTHORS: Paul Venturelli, Ball State University; Kieran Hyder, Cefas; Tonie Aarts, Royal Dutch Angling Association; Rob Ahrens, University of Florida; Michael Allen, University of Florida; Paul Askey, Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia; Johan Attby, Fishbrain; Leah Baumwell, International Game Fish Association; Peter Belin, Swedish Anglers Association; Scott Bonar, U.S. Geological Survey Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; Shannon Bower, Uppsala University; Adam Brown, Substance; Steve Cooke, Carleton University; John Curtis, Ireland Economic and Social Research Institute; Andy Danylchuk, University of Massachusetts; Brett Fitzgerald, The Snook and Gamefish Foundation; David Fulton, U.S. Geological Survey Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; Jon Giacalone, Fishidy; Rob Houtman, Pacific Biological Station; Len Hunt, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry; Matt Johnson, C-Map; Jan Kamman, Royal Dutch Angling Association; Steve Kelling, Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Elizabeth Overstreet, NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center; Kevin Pope, U.S. Geological Survey Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit; Tim Sartwell, NOAA Fisheries Service; Sean Simmons, Angler's Atlas; David Stormer, Florida International University; Christian Skov, Technical University of Denmark
ABSTRACT: Angler smartphone applications (apps) are a new tool for efficiently collecting conventional and novel fisheries data, and have the potential to fundamentally change how anglers interact with the resource. Given that the angler app market is diverse, competitive, and unpredictable, an important step in realizing the potential of angler apps is to develop standards that will ensure a large and reliable data stream for scientific study. To that end, we convened a workshop that was attended by representatives from 11 angler apps, and 22 experts in recreational fisheries, human dimensions, economics, data management, citizen science, and standards. A pre-workshop survey of participants identified gaps between fisheries data needs and the data that angler apps were collecting. We addressed these gaps during the workshop by cataloguing the importance and specific needs associated with 49 data fields (i.e., standards), and then determining whether apps can deliver on these standards. We concluded that any standard can be met, but that anglers will only be willing to supply data for a subset of these standards. Therefore, we propose an initial set of standards that are important to fisheries and/or easy to obtain (e.g., via automation). The consensus among workshop participants was that these standards should be maintained by a science-based and international standards council. This council should also maintain a repository of participating angler apps (including which standards they meet, the amount of data that they have, and for which locations), and any data that participating apps are willing to share. Access to these data will be controlled by the standards council, and in accordance with terms that have been set out by each participating app.
