Scottish Fisheries Co-ordination Centre Talk at 2015 RAFTS Conference
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This document discusses data requirements for fisheries management in Scotland at both the national and local levels. At the national level, key priorities include monitoring water quality, investigating environmental impacts, and evaluating salmon populations through techniques like tracking smolt migration and adult salmon behavior. Collaboration between organizations is important for integration and reliability of data collection. At the local level, data is needed to inform management decisions regarding stock sustainability and the impacts of barriers and predators on habitat quality. Both national and local data requirements include genetic analysis to understand stock structure. Effective communication of results continues to be a challenge.
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Scottish Fisheries Co-ordination Centre Talk at 2015 RAFTS Conference
- 1. Data requirements for fisheries management
- 2. The requirements of fisheries data DATA REQUIREMENTS ‘THE DATA’ Integration between organisations Reliability Communication Management decisions What is and isn’t attainable?
- 3. Integration and standardisation of data collection
- 4. Ensuring data reliability A range of training courses including GIS, scale reading and electrofishing -- SVQ accreditation Protocols Databases
- 5. Current National Data Priorities • Application of a network of temperature stations in representative Scottish streams. • Investigation of environmental effects of installation of on- shore wind-farms. • Monitoring long-term changes in water quality in upland areas. • Evaluating sizes and emigration dates of salmon smolts. • Application of satellite transmitters to determine aspects of the depth use and migration behaviour of adult salmon returning through the Scottish coastal zone. • Investigation of the response of salmon to electromagnetic fields associated with marine renewable energy developments.
- 6. Current National Data Priorities • Measurement of levels of survival and infestation with sea lice of sea trout in relation to salmon farming. • Measurement of numbers of emigrating smolts and returning adult salmon and sea trout at four national monitoring sites. • Development of conservation limits relevant to different regions of Scotland. • Development of a strategic salmon counter network. • Using genetics to identify the areas of river catchments that produce spring salmon.
- 7. Current National Data Priorities • Evaluation of the potential costs and benefits of stocking salmon as eggs and smolts. • Evaluation of whether proposed methods of using genetics to estimate numbers of spawning fish are of value for assessing stocks of salmon. • Applying radio and satellite transmitters to determine the mixed stock nature of coastal net fisheries.
- 8. Electro-fishing data provision for conservation limits project Scotland River Temperature Monitoring Network (SRTMN) National Smolt Data Project Local –National Integration examples Electro-fishing data provision for Water Frame Work 37 locations from variety of partners inputted to project All members of RAFTS have submitted all of there appropriate electrofishing data, a huge data set. Most Trusts submit data that can be used to assess ecological status of water bodies A huge temperature monitoring programme has been installed throughout the length and breadth of Scotland, without a Trust MSS relationship this would have been impossible
- 9. National Collation & Analysis of smolt data • Data collated from SFCC members, Universities and others under a contract to SFCC • Supplemented by data from MSS monitoring sites (Red) • Analysis published by MSS March 6th 2015 • Recommendation of a central database to store smolt data
- 10. Conservation Limits– analysis of juvenile salmon abundance • Understanding spatial variability in juvenile abundance has potential to: – Provide an indication of the spatial variability in salmon production – Allow scaling of Stock-Recruitment relationships from data rich to data poor sites – Permit interpretation of juvenile electrofishing data (provide an expectation to compare with observations i.e. is what we see good or bad for a particular site)
- 11. Conservation Limits– analysis of juvenile salmon abundance
- 12. Scotland River Temperature Monitoring Network (SRTMN) • Strategic large scale river temperature monitoring project • Led by MSS and University of Birmingham through a NERC funded PhD project (Faye Jackson) • Delivered In collaboration with trusts, boards and SEPA
- 13. Increase the Efficacy of the Counter Network 2 routes for this 1. Obtain and use existing counter data – Supplement these with existing biological information 2. Longer term - Salmon Counter network – Plan for a strategic network of counters in rivers throughout Scotland – External contract examining deployment and operation aspects
- 14. Local data requirements • Many of the local requirements for data are sympathetic to the national ones, hence the commence sense approach to collaboration • Data is required to make local management decisions on the health of the stock; is the Fishery Sustainable? • Data is required to understand the effect and location of barriers, large and small. • Data is required on stock structuring – what is vulnerable (genetics)? • Data is required on the prevalence and impact of predators. • Data is required on habitat quality • Data is required to inform planning decisions for local development.
- 15. Data being used for fisheries management Catch and release Exploitation rates Stocking Licenses for mitigating economic damage
- 18. National & local data requirements Genetic stock discrimination
- 19. Local data requirements Output from FASMOP FASMOP failed to separate the stock components FASMOP did give indications of stock abundance at a very local level through determination of number of spawners required to produce the population. It also demonstrated that the prevalence of Hybrids on the Annan was far higher than expected!!
- 20. Communicating the results This will always continue to be the challenge (and this isn’t limited to fisheries management) Thank You For Listening
Editor's Notes
- For the initiated, SFCC was established in 1997 at the start of this ‘mini revolution’ of localised evidence based management through the creation of the Trust network which now covers most of Scotland. SFCC was created to “help its members and others to collect, collate, use, and provide information on salmon and freshwater fish, their habitats and fisheries, in an effective and co-operative way.“ Not only does SFCC help Trusts and DSFBs collect data for management, SFCC brings all parties involved in fisheries data collection in Scotland under the same roof, so this includes Fisheries Trusts, DSFBs, Marine Scotland, SEPA, RAFTS and SSE. SFCC is therefore well placed to consider the data requirements for fisheries management in the context of the fisheries management review A key component of the review was recommendations that highlighted the importance of an evidence based philosophy and this means data collection and how it is used for management. While the title is “data requirements for fisheries management”, this can be extended a bit further to consider how we make sure “data is used effectively for fisheries management”, not just for collecting data for the sake of it. There are different aspects of data which all combine to determine whether it is used properly and effectively. REMIT - “I think this is a good opportunity for SFCC to gather thoughts on what should be data requirements (and why) and how data could be collected, collated, stored and analysed. Given the audience it does not have to too technical but should cover the broad points and principles. I also hope it link to Simon’s preceding presentation on fisheries management.“ email from Chris
- Following our line of thinking for the requirements of data for fisheries management The data itself. National and local level but there is some blurring between the two as we will see as national requirements can also assist local ones as well. There are many local data requirements already being fulfilled, so let’s focus on the national requirements some of which fulfil local requirements. Some of the key drivers to national requirements are NASCO, SAC and WFD 2) Recognising what is and isn’t attainable (or at least very difficult) as well the reliability of the data. The realities of fisheries management is that we don’t often have perfect scientific data 3) Integration where possible between different organisations so that we work together 4) Training, protocols, databases and analysis are a component of data. All fairly mundane matters to the angler but is the bread and butter of what SFCC is already doing 5) Communicating the results, particularly to the angler and there are many challenges and some obvious examples 6) Acting on the evidence. Including making sure there is ‘buy in’
- SFCC acts as an interface between public bodies and local fisheries managers Interface Oxford definition: “A point where two systems, subjects, organizations, etc. meet and interact.” Coordination definition: “The organization of the different elements of a complex body or activity so as to enable them to work together effectively”
- In 2014 alone, we are pleased to report 3 key examples (each lead by Marine Scotland Science) of integration between local and national levels, each involving data collected by fisheries trusts being utilised for national scale research and fisheries policy development. It is important also to consider other contributions made by fisheries Trusts to National-scale research and monitoring: Water Framework Directive. SAC monitoring.
- National Smolt Data Project - Project managed by MSS under the National Research & Monitoring Strategy for Diadromous Fish (NRMSD). Essentially the task for SFCC was to identify, request and collate all available datasets on smolt migrations in Scotland. Results: All data supplied (with thanks to 13 organisations) covering 31 locations, with time periods ranging from 1-37 years. This project has now resulted in a publication from MSS to inform policy development. MSS recommendation of a central database to store smolt data
- Conservation limits - MSS asked SFCC to collate and provide all available electrofishing data. All data provided free of charge within deadline. General spatial coverage of Scotland. Thank you to all Trusts for providing data Publication due from MSS
- Pictures here Catch and release – fish are recaught. Actually the recapture rate is very low. Fish have a high mortality. No they don’t Angler exploitation of fish stocks is high. Actually normally around 4% (Tweed example). Take note for kill license When to stock and more importantly, when not to. Based on scientific evidence Licenses for mitigating economic damage from predators. Based on reliable counting methods.
- Example of local requirement
- Example of local requirement
- The lines can blur between national and local requirements and genetics is one of them. We require the expertise at a national level and management questions can help address national questions but at the same time we want to use genetics and stock discrimination to answer local questions as well. Map of Scotland. We are unable to differentiate most rivers, let alone tributaries, but we can differentiate Sea Trout and this allows us to disentangle the elements of mixed stock fisheries on the east coast Does genetics for stock structuring inform our management at the moment? Not tremendously, yet we can all see the potential value and don’t question the need to continue this important research
- FASMOP was a necessary step in the process towards genetic stock discrimination but didn’t quite manage to attain what we wanted to Perhaps one of the most important and to some degree overlooked output from FASMOP was the number of breeders contributing to the Fry samples that were taken. Example from the Whiteadder. 50 fry were used for genetic samples from a few hundred meters of river, so a maximum of 100 different parents could have produced these offspring. 68 different parents contributed to that sample. 68! This has to allow for precocious parr, but nevertheless this is an incredibly high number of spawning fish. By creating a ratio between the two, results can be plotted out in catchments and throughout Scotland. With these sorts of numbers, we could very unscientifically say “there are plenty of fish” but in the future this could be used as a monitoring tool and could link in to conservation limit setting where lower ratios could indicate that there aren’t enough fish (FASMOP REPORT It is possible that samples at a site are more reflective of families rather than populations, given the life-history stage(s) targeted by sampling and the potentially finescale geographic coverage (Hansen et al. 1997). This occurrence can alter the genetic signature of the sample and obscure population level differences. Therefore, prior to 6 population level analyses, each site was screened for the presence of full-siblings, representing family groups and when identified, all but one individual of a full-sib family were removed. Additionally, this analysis can estimate how many breeders contributed to producing each sample, which may include contributions from sexually mature parr. Initial sample sizes, as well as sample sizes after full-siblings were removed, are presented in Table 1.)
- The challenge of communicating science isn’t limited to fisheries management but is probably one of the best examples that can be found, perhaps only second to global warming. E.g. stocking Here we have Brian on the Spey having a chat with local gillies where there is a distinct spatial separation between the two Fisheries managers are much better at communication these days using video media, facebook, twitter and summary reports yet there will always be a vocal minority who will still complain