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Fishers reporting all of their catch is key to estimating population viabilities of vulnerable, highly migratory fish stocks. However, fishery managers find it difficult to ensure that this reporting behavior takes place consistently. Wild Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) are a highly migratory and internationally contested species with a threatened conservation status. Greenland manages a fishery for Atlantic salmon, and its coastline serves as a key feeding ground in the life history of Atlantic salmon. However, salmon catch is underreported by fishers, even though they are required to report. Deterring noncompliant behavior with penalties and sending short message service (SMS) messages have been shown to increase compliance, but no known studies test their effect on compliance with catch reporting requirements. We evaluated two interventions for their effect on salmon catch reporting behavior among Greenland's salmon fishers. Salmon fishers were 41% more likely to report (p < 0.00) once a deterrence-based intervention was implemented. Fishers who received SMS reminders were 6% more likely to report salmon catch (p < 0.1). These results highlight the complementarity of nudges and command-and-control interventions to increase compliance with catch reporting requirements.

 

Abstract Adaptive management of marine protected areas (MPAs) to determine whether they are meeting their intended goals requires predicting how soon those goals will be realized. Such predictions have been made for increases in fish abundance and biomass inside MPAs. However, projecting increases in fishery yield (“fishery spillover”) is more complex because it involves both how the fishery is managed and uncertainty in larval connectivity. We developed a two-patch, age-structured population model, based on a renewal equation approach, to project the initial timing of increase in fishery yield from larvae exported from a no-take MPA. Our results link our understanding of the predicted timing of increases in biomass (and thus reproduction) in MPAs with the time-lags associated with new recruits entering the fishery. We show that the time-lag between biomass peaking within the MPA and the increased fishery yield outside the MPA reaching its maximum depends, in a predictable way, on the age-dependent patterns of growth, natural mortality, and fishing mortality. We apply this analysis to 16 fishery species from the US Pacific coast; this difference ranged from 7 to 18 years. This model provides broadly applicable guidance for this important emerging aspect of fisheries management.