Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2018/18
Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling
Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden
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Jody Raditya Hanindyawan Handoko
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES
I N S T I T U T I O N E N F Ö R G E O V E T E N S K A P E R
Master thesis in Sustainable Development 2018/18
Examensarbete i Hållbar utveckling
Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden
Jody Raditya Hanindyawan Handoko
Supervisor: Malgorzata Blicharska
Evaluator: Patrik Rönnbäck
Copyright © Jody Raditya Hanindyawan Handoko and the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University Published at Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University (www.geo.uu.se), Uppsala, 2018
Content
1. Introduction ……….……….1
2. Background of the study ……….……….3
2.1. Recreational fishing and fishing as tourism sector in Sweden ………...………...3
2.2. C&R information and guidelines ………..……….3
2.2.1. C&R practice in Sweden ……….4
2.3. Internet as source of information in the recreational fisheries ………...…………...5
3. Method ………..5
3.1. Quantitative content analysis ………..…………..……….5
3.2. Website selection and data collection ………..………..6
3.3. Data analysis ………...10
3.4. Research delimitation………...……….11
4. Result ………...12
4.1. Type of business and C&R presence ………..………..12
4.2. Fishing and C&R regulations ………...13
4.3. C&R motivation and information on how to handle fish ……….14
4.4. Accessibility ………...………..15
4.5. Quality ………...………...16
4.6. Word counts ………...………..17
4.7. The relationship between the variables ………...18
5. Discussion ………...18
5.1. Presence and accessibility of C&R information and guidelines …………..………...……….18
5.2. Quality of C&R information and guidelines ………...……….19
5.3. Implications………...21
6. Conclusion and recommendation……….……….22
7. Acknowledgement ………..………23
8. References ………...23
9. Appendix………..28
9.1. C&R Information………...………..……….28
9.2. C&R Guidelines……….……….…..………...33
9.3. C&R Click counts, word counts and quality score……….………….……….39
List of Tables
Table 1. C&R information categorization ………8
Table 2. Best practice guidelines for C&R in recreational fishing (Sims and Danylchuk, 2017) ………9
Table 3. Categorization of type of business and type of C&R variables ………...……….10
List of Figures
Fig. 1. Data collection’s process workflow ………..………6Fig. 2. The frequency of the type of business that was found in the study ………...12
Fig. 3. Percentage of the C&R information presence on the websites of the different business categories …….13
Fig. 4. Presence percentage of the type of C&R ……….………14
Fig. 5. The frequency of best practice guidelines by Sims and Danylchuk (2017) mentioned ………...15
Fig. 6. Number of clicks needed to retrieve C&R information and guidelines. ………...16
Fig. 7. C&R quality score distribution. ………..17
Fig. 8. Word counts distribution chart………...17
List of abbreviations
C&R Catch and release
HaV Havs och Vattenmyndigheten
Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden
JODY RADITYA HANINDYAWAN HANDOKO
Hanindyawan Handoko, J.R. 2018: Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden. Master Thesis in Sustainable Development at Uppsala University, No. 2018/18, 43 pp. 30 ECTS/hp
Abstract:
Recreational fishing is one of popular outdoor activities and a growing business in Sweden. However, preceding researches had shown that recreational fisheries may contribute to overfishing as much as commercial fisheries. One of the ways to reduce anglers’ impact on fish populations is the practice of releasing caught fish (catch and release; C&R). C&R is often seen as an ethical and sustainable way of fishing that supports fish conservation. Anglers may obtain C&R information and guidelines from different sources, such as fishing club, fishing magazines, state agencies. As the internet is increasingly becoming an important source for anglers to obtain updated fishing information, fishing tourism operators could be a principal actor to provide C&R information and guidelines through their websites. At the same time there is lack of information on the presence and quality of C&R information at Swedish websites. As international tourists are important group of anglers that use tourism operators’ services, and due to the language limitation of the author, this study focused on websites in English language.
Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the presence and quality of C&R information and guidelines in English language provided by fishing tourism operators’ websites in Sweden. The study followed the quantitative content analysis approach by assigning categories and counting the frequencies in the text found on the fishing tourism operators’ websites. First, the websites were scanned to check if C&R information was present. Then, the number of clicks needed to retrieve this information was counted to measure its accessibility. Finally, a C&R information quality score was calculated by adding up scores based on different type and quality of the information found on the websites, including 12 criteria of the C&R best practice guidelines developed by Sims and Danylchuk (2017). The study found that 66 out of 151 analyzed websites provided C&R information and guidelines which generally easily accessed (two clicks on average). However, in general the websites had a low average quality score of the C&R information and guidelines. Moreover, there was a high variability in how the information was presented on the websites, suggesting lack of standardized guidelines that fishing tourism operators could refer to.
Consequently, there is a need to encourage and support more fishing tourism operators to provide a high quality C&R information and guidelines on their websites.
Keywords:Sustainable Development, Recreational Fisheries, Catch-and-Release, Fishing Tourism Operators, Website, Sweden.
Jody Raditya Hanindyawan Handoko, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavägen 16, SE- 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden
JODY RADITYA HANINDYAWAN HANDOKO
Hanindyawan Handoko, J. R. 2018: Presence and Quality of Catch and Release Information and Guidelines on Fishing Tourism Operators’ Websites in Sweden. Master Thesis in Sustainable Development at Uppsala University, No. 2018/18, 43 pp. 30 ECTS/hp
Summary:
Recreational fishing is a popular outdoor activity and a growing business in Nordic countries, including Sweden. The practice of releasing caught fish (catch and release, C&R) is a common practice among anglers. It is seen as an ethical and sustainable way of fishing while maintaining healthy fish populations. Anglers retrieve C&R information and guidelines from various sources such as fishing clubs, state agencies and fishing magazines; and internet is an important source for anglers to obtain updated information. Therefore, fishing tourism operators could play an important role in providing C&R information and guidelines on their websites. As Swedish recreational fisheries has a potency to attract international anglers, it is important for Swedish fishing tourism operators to provide information in English language. However, there is little information of the presence and quality of such information on their websites. Therefore, the aim of this research is to analyse the presence, accessibility, and quality of C&R information and guidelines in English language on fishing tourism operators’ websites in Sweden. This study utilized quantitative content analysis method by assigning categories and counting the frequencies of the information founded in the text’s websites. Search engine “Google search” was employed between January and February 2018 to find fishing tourism operators’ website in Sweden which was then filtered to specifically target English language websites.
The results showed that 66 out of 151 analyzed websites provided C&R information and guidelines. In general, the information was easy to access with only two clicks on average needed to obtain the information and guidelines from the homepage.
However, the information and guidelines were generally of a low-quality. The existed information was presented in variable way because there was no standard guidelines that fishing tourism operators could refer to. Therefore, there is a need to encourage and support more fishing tourism operators in Sweden to provide a high-quality C&R information and guidelines on their websites.
Keywords:Sustainable Development, Recreational Fisheries, Catch-and-Release, Fishing Tourism Operators, Website, Sweden.
Jody Raditya Hanindyawan Handoko, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavägen 16, SE- 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
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1. Introduction
Fishing is one of popular outdoor activities as a means to be connected with the nature for some people in Nordic countries, including Sweden (Toivonen et al., 2004; Olausen and Block, 2014; Hyder et al., 2017).
With a vast sea and many lakes, Sweden has an abundance of fish stocks which support the recreational fisheries sector (Jordbruksverket, 2017b). Recreational fishing tourism is a growing business in Sweden (Jordbruksverket, 2017a). During 2015, 1.6 million Swedes contributed to approximately 11 million fishing days. The total expense for recreational fishing has been estimated to 14.9 billion Swedish crowns (SEK; 10 SEK ~ 1 €) (Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, 2017). Total catch of recreational fisheries in Sweden in 2015 was being estimated to reach 15.300 tons from both inland, coastal and marine (Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, 2017).
Along with the popularity of recreational fishing within Swedish itself, it is likely that the potency of recreational fisheries in Sweden could attract anglers from other countries to have the fishing experience (Jordbruksverket, 2016). Moreover, an effort to promote recreational fishing to the international community as one of the promising tourism sectors in Sweden has been done by various organization through their website e.g. Visit Sweden and SwedenFishing.com which are supported by Swedish tourism board and EU Rural Development program through Swedish local leader (visit Sweden, 2017;
swedenfishing, 2018).
However, besides of positive effect on tourist development, recreational fisheries can also negatively contribute to the issue of overfishing. Their impact can be as high as the impact of commercial fisheries, especially due to the tendency of species selectivity (Cooke and Cowx, 2006) which impacts the resource base and may disturb the natural food web, for example in the Baltic Sea (Hansson et al., 2017). Although anglers often have lower catch rate compared to commercial fisheries, the aggregate number of anglers may to a large extent contribute to disturbing fish populations. Moreover, low fish populations do not necessarily make the anglers stop fishing since the fishing satisfaction might depend on the catch possibility rather than the actual catch (Arlinghaus et al., 2007).
Catch and release (C&R) is a practice of capturing fish with particular fishing gear and then release the fish without being harmed. This method is known within the angler community as an ethical and sustainable fishing practice to conserve fish populations based on regulations or voluntary reasons (Arlinghus et al., 2007). C&R is also a common fisheries management tools that are used to maintain a healthy fish population when conducting recreational fisheries activities (Arlinghaus et al., 2007) and can lead to reduced pressure from anglers.
However, for C&R to be valid it needs to be done in the “right way” and also be communicated well to reach the fishing community, i.e. anglers. Mainly, C&R needs to be done so that it does not harm the released fish. Several studies show that a lack of or non-conformity to C&R best practice may cause stress, behavioural changes and even mortality in fish after being released (Cooke and Schramm, 2007;
Arlinghus et al., 2007). Hence there is a need for providing high-quality guidance on best practice for C&R and ensuring its distribution among recreational anglers.
Recently, the internet has been a primary information source for anglers regarding opportunities for fishing as well as improving their knowledge on particular fishing practices, e.g. in North America (Nguyen et al., 2012). Consequently, internet-based resources could function as key information sources regarding communication of C&R “best practices”. Different websites can be a potential source of
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information, e.g. state and provincial fisheries agencies (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007), angling- based NGOs (Sims and Danylchuk, 2017) or fishing club’s websites (Gray and Jordan, 2010).
In the light of the fishing tourism potency in Sweden, fishing tourism operators could potentially be very useful actors for disseminating the C&R information and guidelines efficiently through their websites.
Furthermore, information on the websites can help international anglers decide to choose the best fishing tourism operators before they come to Sweden. However, there is a lack of information on the presence of the C&R information provided by tourism operators’ websites. Also, even if the information on C&R is potentially present on different websites, the question is if it provides accurate guidance that is in line with the most up to date research on C&R practice.
Research into government agencies’ and fishing NGO’s websites in different countries (e.g., in North America) has shown a general lack of scientifically proven C&R information and guidelines (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007; Sims and Danylchuk, 2017). Currently, there are no studies that investigate the presence and quality of C&R information on the fishing tourism operators’ websites, including websites from Sweden. Although the fishing tourism business is developing in Sweden (Jordbruksverket, 2017a), little is known about how fishing operators present C&R information and guidelines to the anglers, including foreign anglers. For this reason, there is a need for research on how the C&R information and practice guidelines may be promoted and delivered.
As Swedish fishing opportunities attract many international anglers, it is likely that many operators provide information in English as one of the options on their websites. Because of that, and also due to language limitations (to avoid misinterpretation by using a translation tool), this research focused on fishing operators that provide an English version on their websites. Although there were some cases where the information in English was different than the Swedish, this research only focused on the information that was written in English.
The aim of this study is to investigate the presence and quality of C&R information and guidelines in English language provided by fishing tourism operators’ websites in Sweden.
The key research questions are:
1. Do Swedish fishing tourism operators provide C&R information and guidelines in English language on their websites?
2. If C&R information and guidelines are provided:
a. How accessible is the information and guidelines on the website?
b. What is the quality of the information and guidelines?
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2. Background of the study
2.1. Recreational fishing and fishing as tourism sector in Sweden
Recreational fishing is an activity done to meet psychological satisfaction rather than to fulfil a primary physiological need and not for commercial purposes (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). With the increase of wealth, and to fulfil the need for an adventure and close to nature, fishing has become increasingly popular as a recreational activity (Olausen and Block, 2014). Although in industrialized countries, especially in the urban societies, modernization and economic development are predicted to reduce interest in fishing (Arlinghaus, Tillner and Bork, 2015), currently the interest in it is very high and increasing, e.g. with 1.6 million people fishing recreationally every year in Sweden (Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, 2017).
Recreational fishing is one of the favourite leisure activities in Sweden, and the possibility to relax, experience nature, an opportunity to catch your fish and spend time with friends and family has been listed as the top four reasons for fishing (Fiskeriverket, 2008).
Businesses related to recreational fishing are built to fulfil the need of people to experience fishing, enjoy the nature, and engage in social interaction (Rudd, Folmer, and van Kooten, 2002). In Sweden, these businesses consist of gear and products manufacturers, retailers and fishing tourism operators. The last mentioned type of actor is promoted by the Swedish Board of Agriculture described as mainly providing fishing experience service, which includes providing fishing permits, boats, and lodging, fishing guides and courses (education) (Jordbruksverket, 2017a). The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management reported that total expense in 2015 was 3 billion Swedish crowns spent in fishing gear, travelling, fishing guides, food, and accommodation while 11.3 billion Swedish crowns spent for boats and more long-term investments (Havs- och vattenmyndigheten, 2017).
2.2. C&R information and guidelines
C&R is defined as “process of capturing fish by using hook and line, mostly assisted by rods and reels, and then releasing live fish back to the waters where they were captured, presumably to survive unharmed” (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). C&R definitions and practices have been understood differently by the different actors such as anglers, fishery managers, scientists, environmentalists and decision makers.
For example, fishery managers often see C&R as an excellent tool to manage fish populations, while some NGOs might see it as a cruel action which is against fish welfare. Furthermore, in some parts of European countsries such as Finland, Norway, U.K. or German, the debate over the supporter and opponent of C&R have continuously been raised for the ethical, economic, conservation, biological and regulation reasons (Aas, Thailing, and Ditton, 2002).
The practice of C&R began with the voluntary release of the fish unwanted for consumption and then shifted into stricter and more specific regulations to release the captured fish when recreational fishing started to become more popular (Policansky, 2002). It became especially important when the fish population began decreasing because of industrialisation and land conversion. England was one of the first countries that applied minimum-size limits above or below which the fish need to be released to regulate recreational fishing as an effort to conserve fish population (Policansky, 2002). For the time being, C&R practice is increasing in most European countries, including Sweden (Aas, Thailing and Ditton, 2002).
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The development of C&R has widened over time and includes various types of C&R (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). In general, the C&R practice can be total C&R (with all fish released) or partial C&R (where certain fish are released). C&R can also be voluntary or based on regulations (Policansky, 2002), so- called “regulatory C&R”. Fishing regulations can be explicit about C&R practice, regulating its implementation, or they can implicitly imply that fish release is required. In the latter case, the regulations can be about, e.g. license permits, daily bag limits, fish size, and quota limit, i.e. regulations that force release due to particular reasons. Other rules are protected species, area and seasonal closure (Policansky, 2002; Arlinghaus et al., 2007), often related to the spawning season. The regulations are made to force the anglers to release fish as an effort to manage fishing population (Arlinghaus et al., 2007), which can come from local or national authority and fishing operators, especially in the private water area.
Particularly, daily bag limits, fish size and quota limits are some of the most common output control in recreational fisheries that is used to limit fishing mortality (Isermand and Pauket, 2010 in FAO, 2012).
At the same time, voluntary C&R is growing in most of the European countries (Casselman, 2005).
Although in some European countries there is also a limitation to perform C&R, such as in Germany where it is prohibited to voluntarily release fish within size limit (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). Voluntary C&R comes from the anglers based on the ethical perspective of the anglers who believe it may contribute to the fish conservation which ensures the continuity of the future fishing activities (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). Releasing the fish may be as important as catching for some anglers (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). In relation to that voluntary C&R is currently increasing among anglers as an ethical way of fishing that supports conservation effort (Casselman, 2005; Arlinghaus et al., 2007).
Experienced anglers are most likely to support C&R approach to sustain fish populations, and to release the fish in the right way. Those particular anglers most commonly focus on the self-satisfaction to the fishing experience, and not fish consumption as such (Sutton 2001 in Arlinghaus et al., 2007). In addition, the fishing experience that has grown over time contributes to their knowledge which leads to the more common implementation of C&R practice (Arlinghaus et al., 2007). However, being an experienced angler is not the only factor for choosing to release fish. Other personal and conditional factors affect this decision, most common ones connected to species-specific preferences (Sutton, 2003).
The question regarding the provision of C&R information is whether general details or species-specific guideline is needed. Cooke and Schramm (2007) summarised in their paper that general guidelines alone might not be enough because each species have a different reaction to the release situation. Even the same species could respond differently in a different location or time. Thus, there is a need to improve the general guidelines to guarantee that all fish could be released in a healthy state and provide a species- specific guideline for particular place and time (Casselman, 2005). However, when there are no official C&R guidelines present (like in Sweden), even general information on handling the fish found in unofficial sources (such as websites of tourism operators) would be beneficial to provide information that could improve the fish survival when being released.
2.2.1. C&R practice in Sweden
The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (Havs och Vattenmyndigheten; HaV) has the government’s assignment to manage fish and shellfish resources in Sweden sustainably. Together with the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), HaV has a shared responsibility for developing recreational fisheries and fishing tourism. To this end, the agencies have developed a strategy for the development of Swedish recreational fishing and fishing tourism until 2020 (Nerhagen and Jonsson, 2017). Implementation of this strategy is a complex endeavour where many actors are involved in the practice, such as governmental authorities, fishing clubs, businesses both in commercial and recreational fisheries, and anglers.
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While there are some regulations concerning species-specific seasons, size limits etc. that require the release of certain fish in Sweden, there is no clear instructions or control of C&R use in most cases, and thus most anglers that utilise this practice do so voluntarily. Although the quality of handling the fish when conducting C&R is essential, there are no “official” guidelines by the Swedish authorities that are reachable for all anglers in English language. The only available information is practical suggestions provided by fishing associations such as Kronolaxfisket and Swedenfishing, as well as the Swedish Association of Recreational Anglers (Sportfiskarna) (Kronolaxfisket, 2017; Swedenfishing, 2017).
2.3. Internet as source of information in the recreational fisheries
Anglers retrieve fishing information from various sources; however, recently internet is becoming one of the most important sources of this information. Nguyen et al., (2012) categorised anglers into three different categories based on how they obtain information, which is traditional, investigative and networking angler, all of which use the internet as one among other sources to get information. In the web, anglers mainly refer to fishery trade magazines, and state and federal fishery websites to look for information and receive updates (Gray and Jordan, 2010).
It has been suggested that the quality of C&R information and guidelines found on the internet needs to be improved to encourage the best practice among anglers. For example, Sims and Danylchuk (2017) found that less than 9% of 183 anglers’ NGO websites in the US mentioned C&R and that almost none of them provided proper guidelines. Other research on state and provincial fisheries in North America also shows that there was inconsistent information among agencies. Some of the information was contradictive among each other which failed to guide the anglers to a scientifically proven C&R practice (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007).
3. Method
3.1. Quantitative content analysis
This study adopts a quantitative content analysis approach to analyse fishing tourism operators’ websites.
In general, the quantitative content analysis is about assigning categories and counting the frequencies in the text, which may include the text found on the websites (Bos and Tarnai, 1999). The content analysis is “a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (Berelson, 1953:18 in Bryman, 2012). This method can be applied to any printed or visual documents, including websites since the text is the main subject of investigation in this method.
The idea of the technique is to conduct an objective and systematic analysis of the text, minimising analyst’s personal biases and subjectivity (Bryman, 2012).
The versatility of content analysis method has made it possible to be utilised in both social and natural science research, including tourism. For example, in ecotourism research, this method had been used by Garrod and Fennell (2004) to analyse whale-watching code of conduct. Another example is the research on the hospitality business where the evaluation of hotel websites content was conducted (Salem and Čavlek, 2016).
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3.2. Websites selection and data collection
In the first stage of the study, relevant fishing tourism operator websites were searched using Google search engine between January and February 2018 (see Figure 1 below), with the keyword “fishing”.
During the search, the filter was set to only show websites that were located in Sweden and were in the English language. During the website selection process, operators were selected if the websites provided recreational fishing-related activities as one of the services; whether as a main or complementary service.
In the search process, 84 fishing tourism operators’ websites were found eligible for the study.
Some of the sites that came up during the search did not belong to fishing tourism operators but, for example, represented tourism websites of municipalities, and included links to the actual fishing operators’
websites. In such situations, the source website was recorded then utilised for the next step, which was snowballing. This further step resulted in 67 websites that provided fishing related activities as their service. As a result, 151 websites were in total selected for the analysis.
Fig. 1. Data collection’s process workflow. This figure explains the process of websites collection from Google search and snowballing which then analysed based on various categories.
Google search
Type of Business
General Fishing
Regulation C&R Information
Type of C&R
Regulation
Voluntary
Combination
No-Data
100% C&R Regulation that
Imply C&R C&R Motivation
General Information on
Handling Fish C&R Guidelines by
Sims and Danylchuk (2017) Snowballing
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The selected websites were screened in detail in search for information allowing for categorising them into preselected categories (see Figure 1 above), relevant to the scope of the study. As the dynamic of the website could change quite fast and information could be updated or deleted without prior notice, potentially affecting the project, a screenshot of website URL, content and dates was performed and saved to keep track of the websites’ content that was analysed.
In the second stage of the study, the websites were categorised into different categories, depending on their type and content. First, information was gathered on the type of website, i.e. each site was categorised into type of business. Fishing tourist operator business was defined as any business that acquires profit from recreational fisheries activities, whether as main or complementary service (Waldo and Paulrud, 2012) and, following definition by Jordbruksverket (Swedish Board of Agriculture), the categories of the businesses were: 1) lodging, 2) food (restaurant or fish product seller), 3) boat/canoe rental, 4) rental and selling fishing equipment together with fishing, 5) guide tour/course, and 6) selling fishing permits (Jordbruksverket, 2017a).
Next step was to look for any general fishing regulations on the website. These regulations were not limited to C&R regulations but could be any fishing regulations that could either mirror the local and/or national authorities’ laws or be custom-made by particular fishing operators for the specific water area.
However, this general fishing regulations category did not affect the C&R quality score since the purpose to record this category was to understand how many operators were willing to educate anglers about any fishing regulation.
This study was not limited to fish as target species, but also included crayfish and lobster. Some of the fishing tourism operators found in this study were providing lobster and crayfish fishing experience.
However, such kind of fishing was most commonly a complementary service along with the actual fishing activities. In addition, this study did not focus on specific-species guidelines but general information for all species. Therefore, any fishing service regardless of the species was recorded and analysed in this study.
At the third stage, information was gathered on the presence and accessibility of C&R information and guidelines. Each website was assigned “1” if the information and guidelines were present on the website, and “0” if it there was none. Then, for the websites that had some information on the C&R, accessibility was assessed by counting the number of “clicks” needed to get the information from the main homepage of the website. Click counts method was deemed applicable for the study, as it was previously used in similar research, for example, to analyse C&R guidelines from state and provincial agencies in North America (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007).
The location of the information and guidelines varied. Some information was grouped under the regulations tab, but it could also be dispersed in several locations, for example, included in the fishing site information or fishing guide package description. When the C&R information was scattered across a website, the number of the clicks was determined by website pages where most comprehensive information was located. In this study, the number of clicks started from ‘0’, which means that the first page already contained C&R information and guidelines.
Words that were used to present C&R information and guidelines were also recorded. Full sentences containing information on this topic were recorded and the number of the words counted (variable “word counts”). This word counts could represent the effort of the fishing operator to provide C&R information.
Word counts method also used by (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007) to analyse the quality of websites.
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Finally, the type and quality of the existing information and guidelines on C&R was assessed by assigning the contents of the website into 17 categories (see Figure 1 above), which were five categories related to general C&R information and 12 related to best-practice criteria in the C&R guidelines by Sims and Danylchuk (2017). The details of the C&R information categorisation are presented in Table 1 below.
Table 1. C&R Information categorization No Category Explanation 1
Website provides C&R information and guidelines for different types of C&R
To categorise the website into this category, it needed to include information about C&R, either using the term “catch and release” or
“release” or implying C&R without using these actual keywords. In addition, which website was categorised into one of the following sub- categories, representing the type of C&R the website included information about:
Regulation
C&R was presented as forced by regulations (indicated by the presence of official regulations by authorities, or the particular regulations by the fishing operator). Words such as “must” or “should” were indicative of this category.
Voluntary
C&R was encouraged, but nor forced by any regulations; there was no prohibition to perform C&R.
Combination
C&R was both supported by regulations and encouraged.
No data
Websites mentioned the term “catch and release” or “release”, but did not provide any further information on its type.
2
Website present 100 % C&R
This category includes websites that presented any statements that suggested that no fish can be kept in the fishing area; all fish must be released.
3
Website present regulations that imply C&R
This category includes websites that presented any regulations implying the need for C&R such as regulations on catch quota, bag limit, size limit, season closure, or particular rules by fishing operators. Anglers are allowed to keep some fish within the limit that is being applied and need to release the rest.
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Website includes information on C&R motivation
The website was categorised into this category if it included information on the motivation behind the C&R. The motivation could be shown as the purpose and/or benefit of C&R either for fish population and/or future anglers. This category was recorded to reveal how many fishing operators made an effort to educate and motivate anglers to perform C&R. This could also suggest that the fishing operator supported C&R.
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Website includes general
information on handling fish
The website was categorised into this category if any information regarding how to handle the fish that less detailed than 12 guidelines by Sims and Danylchuk (2017) was present on the website.
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As a part of the assessment of the quality of C&R information and guidelines, this study utilised summary of 12 criteria of the C&R guidelines by Sims and Danylchuk (2017) (see Table 2 below). Any words and sentences that reflected the particular principles of these guidelines were assessed and recorded.
Table 2. Best practice guidelines for C&R in recreational fishing (Sims and Danylchuk, 2017) No Criteria Correct conveyance of the best practice
1
Wet hands Fish should only be handled with wet hands to avoid damage to their skin/scales/protective film
2
Air exposure Exposure of any fish to air should be avoided
3
Handling time The time that a fish is handled should be limited to reduce stress to the fish
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Hook type Anglers should use circle hook rather than J-hooks to minimise damage to the fish’s internal organs and internal bleeding, but safest hook type can differ between species
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Barbed hook Barbed hook should be avoided because they are more likely to damage the fish
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Habitat-related Any mention of the preservation of the fish’s habitat while angling – for example, polluting the water a fish lives in can cause sub-lethal damage 7
Temperature Different species have varying thresholds of temperature tolerance. During times of higher-than-normal water temperatures, duration of fight and handling time should be minimised
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Barotrauma Avoid targeting species that are sensitive to pressure changes
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Specialized tools The use of certain tools can help reduce the negative impacts of landing fish (e.g. extractor for hook removal)
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De-hooking technique
Proper technique differs between species and hook location. When removing a hook from a fish’s jaw, it is important to minimize injury to the fish by not using force. When a hook is lodged deep within fish’s body, it is oftentimes better to cut the line, depending on the species
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Release technique
Holding a fish properly and fully submerged while moving it forward in an S-shape or figure-8 will allow water to flow over the gills during release and help to ensure that the fish is receiving oxygen
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Life history specific
Different species have varying levels of vulnerability to the hazards of angling and should be handled according to their individual tolerances to the exposures
Based on the five C&R information categories and the 12 quality criteria, the final C&R information and quality score were calculated. The presence of each of the five information categories and each of the 12 criteria meant one point contributing to the final score. Thus the final score ranged from 1 to 17.
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3.3. Data analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to present the range, average, and standard deviation for word counts, click counts and C&R quality score.
Analysis of relationships between variables was done with two different tests, depending on the nature of the variables. Spearman correlation test was used to reveal whether there is a relationship between continuous variables, i.e. word counts and click counts, and C&R quality score. Then, Kruskal-Wallis test was used to reveal potential relationships between categorical and continuous variables, i.e. the type of business and type of C&R, and the C&R quality score.
Table 3. Categorization of type of business and type of C&R variables
Categorization Category Category number
Type of business Fishing Specific:
Selling Fishing Permit Rental/Sell Fishing Gear Fishing Guide/Course
1
Other:
Lodging
Boat/Canoe Rental Food
2
Combination 3
Type of C&R No Data 0
Regulatory 1
Voluntary 2
Combination 3
For the Kruskal-Wallis analysis, type of business and type of C&R were represented with a number. Type of business was categorised based on the nature of the service, whether it was specifically fishing related service, other and combination (explained in section 3.2). Those categories were represented with a number from one to three (see Table 3). Similarly, type of C&R presented on the websites was categorised into four categories, based on the information provided on the websites (see Table 1, point 1 above).
Category 0 included no data which mean websites mentioned “catch and release” and “release” without further information; category 1 included regulatory C&R; category 2 included voluntary C&R while the third category included websites that described both types of C&R. Each of category then assigned with a number from zero to three (Table 3).
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3.4. Research delimitation
This thesis’ focus was on analysing fishing tourism operator’s websites that provide English language as an option. The main reason to concentrate on the English language was that of Swedish language limitation. In addition, it was deemed relevant to focus on the English-language websites as they may be an important source of information for international tourists visiting Sweden for fishing, who may have problems to get information of C&R from the websites of, e.g. authorities most commonly in Swedish).
Therefore, during data gathering, the websites were filtered to only show websites that had the English language, either as main or optional language. Consequently, the websites provided by Google search engine were limited and might not show the entire fishing tourism operators’ websites in Sweden.
During the categorisation process, it was found that there was the difference between Swedish and English information provided on different websites. Information in Swedish was often more detailed compared to the English which seemed like a summary of the Swedish one. This difference could have led to situations where vital information was missing at English version of the websites, and this could have affected the quality of the information presented there.
In the same manner, language difference could also affect accessibility. At some websites, the location of the Swedish and English text was separated. This location difference would possess a problem when the English information was harder to find compared to the Swedish, i.e. need more clicks to retrieved English than Swedish information.
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4. Results
4.1. Type of business and C&R presence
Google search and snowballing resulted in 151 websites of tourism operators which had fishing as their primary or complementary service. The analysis revealed that fishing-related tourism operators mostly provided more than one service, i.e. two or more of the services as shown in Figure 2. Most of the fishing tourism operators had lodging (108 websites, 72%) and boat/canoe rental (107 websites, 71%), followed by provision of fishing permits (100 websites, 66%), then continued with guided tours (93 websites, 62%), and renting or selling fishing gear (77 websites, 51%). Only four websites (3%) provided service of food, which in this research was described as seafood restaurant or fish product seller.
Fig. 2. The frequency of the type of business that was found in the study. 151 fishing tourism operators was analysed, and each provided one or more service shown above.
Based on the services provided, the tourism operators were categorised into three business categories (for details see Table 3 above): fishing specific (21 websites), other (11 websites) and combination, i.e.
both fishing related services and other services (119 websites). In general, 66 (44%) tourism operators’
websites provided information and/or guidelines on C&R: 50 (33%) operators that provided a combination of different services, 12 (8%) fishing specific operators, and four (3%) provided other complementary services (see Figure 3 below).
108 4
107 77
93 100
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Lodging Food Boat/canoe rental Fishing equipment Guide/guided tours Fishing permit
Frequency Type of Business was Mentioned
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Fig. 3. Percentage of the C&R information presence on the websites of the different business categories. The total amount of each business categories were 21 websites of fishing specific, 11 others, and 119 websites of
combination of both categories.
The proportion of the websites that had C&R information and guidelines among each of the three business categories was also varied. From three categories, a business that provides fishing specific (fishing permit, guide and fishing gear) had a higher proportion (8% of C&R versus 6% No C&R) of C&R information and guidelines on their websites. However, the rest of the two categories had a different proportion where websites that did not provide C&R information and guidelines were higher.
4.2. Fishing and C&R regulations
From 151 initial websites, 82 (54%) contained fishing regulations. The fishing regulation recorded in this category was not limited only to C&R regulation, but all fishing regulations that were mentioned on the website. In most cases, the regulation was about the obligation to have fishing permit and prohibition of using the boat. There was also some information about live bait, and fishing gear restriction, etc.
Out of 151 initial websites, 66 websites provided C&R information and guidelines, where most of them (45 websites, i.e. 68%) presented information about regulatory C&R practice, which was shown in the expressions such as: “…fish under 60 cm shall be released immediately…” or “…we only allow Catch &
Release…Please be aware that only pikes between 40-75cm are allowed to be kept according to Swedish law…”. Meanwhile, information about voluntary C&R was only present on five websites (8%). This was, for example, expressed by the following statements: “…We encourage catch and release…”, or “…We recommend C&R as the natural way to fish…”. Furthermore, 20% (13 websites) provided a combination of information about both regulatory and voluntary C&R. Three websites (4%) mentioned one of the keywords “catch and release” or “release” but did not provide any further C&R information. The result is shown in figure 4 below.
Fishing specific Other Combination
No C&R 6% 5% 46%
C&R 8% 3% 33%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Percentage of websites
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Fig. 4. Presence of type of C&R. Number (bars, left axis) and percentage (line, right axis) of the type of C&R from total 66 websites that provided C&R information and guidelines.
Among 66 websites that provided C&R regulations, five websites had regulations requiring total (100%) C&R in their fishing area. For example, they mentioned: “…Pure catch and release water…” or stated that “…All fish must be released back into the lake…”. Moreover, regulations described on 52 of the websites implied that C&R should be done. For example, they stated: “…Kill no more fish than you need…”, “…The minimum length of both trout and grayling that can be taken is 40 cm…”, “…Salmon that have spawned should quickly be returned during the months of March and April…” or “…Catch quota is 2 salmonids per day…”.
4.3. C&R motivation and information on how to handle fish
Out of 66 websites that contained C&R information or guidelines, 15 websites (22.7%) also provided some motivation for C&R in various sentences. The examples are: “…It is very important for us that our fishing guests practice catch and release to ensure a healthy future fish population…” or “…These rules give us the high quality we have today and give future generations of fishermen the chance to experience the same quality as we have today…”. Furthermore, 18 websites (27.3%) included general information on handling fish. The examples of this information are “…Reminder zander should gently be put back in the lake…” or “…handle the fish gently so it survives…”. Additionally, more than half of the websites (11 out of 18) that presented general handling information also included some information in relation to one or more criteria included in the Sims and Danylchuk (2017) best practice guidelines.
68%
8%
20%
5%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Regulation Voluntary Combination No Data
Percentage of websites
Number of websites
Type of C&R
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Fig. 5. The frequency with which the best practice guidelines by Sims and Danylchuk (2017) were mentioned at fishing tourism operators’ websites.
Out of all 66 websites that provided C&R information and guidelines, 20 websites (30%) included information that reflected one or more criteria described in the C&R guidance by Sims and Danylchuk (2017). The number of criteria mentioned was between one to eight for each website (mean ± SD; 1.9 ± 1.8). Figure 5 presents which criteria were most commonly mentioned. Seven out of 20 websites (35%) provided information suggesting the prohibition of using a barbed hook, followed by six websites (30%) giving information about handling time and six websites (30%) citing air exposure. Five websites (25%) provided information regarding life history specific to particular species and another five websites (25%) described the use of specialised tools. The remaining websites presented information related to the preservation of fish habitat (three websites; 15%), handling fish with wet hands (two websites; 10%), de- hooking technique (two websites; 10%), release technique (one website; 5%) and temperature (one website; 5%). None of the sample websites provided any information regarding barotrauma and hook type.
4.4. Accessibility
The accessibility of C&R information and guidelines was measured by counting the number of mouse clicks needed to reach the information. In the present study, the information was in most cases found under tabs such as “regulation” together with other general fishing regulations or under the tab “about us”, which consisted of general information about the fishing operator and often included information on the fishing operators’ mission to support sustainable fishing. However, it was also found that some of the locations were not easy to find because it was located in “uncommon” location. One example is the website where the information was not located under “regulation” tab but instead in a guide package description.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
wet hands air exposure handling time hook type barbed hook habitat-related temperature barotrauma specialized tools de-hooking technique release technique life history specific
Frequency each guideline mentioned
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Fig. 6. Number (bars, left axis) and percentage (line, right axis) of websites with a particular number of clicks needed to access C&R information. Total number of websites was 66.
For the 66 websites that contained information about C&R, the number of the clicks ranged from 0 to 6 (mean ± SD; 2.15 ± 1.085). Zero indicates that C&R information was located on the main homepage.
Most of the websites needed two clicks to obtain C&R information and guidelines (26 websites), followed with three clicks (17 websites), one click (16 websites), four clicks (3 websites), zero-click (2 websites), five and six clicks for each one website (see Figure 6 above).
4.5. Quality
The quality of the C&R information and guidelines was calculated for the total number of categories provided (see section 3.2, also table 1 and 2), which varied for the 66 websites from a low score of 1 to a high score of 12 (mean ± SD; 2.94 ± 1.79). As shown in Figure 7 below, the dominant quality score was two (32 websites; 48%) followed with score three and four (11 websites, i.e. 17%, each) which then continued with score one (5 websites; 8%), five (4 websites; 6%), eight (2 websites; 3%) and 12 (with only one website; 2%). Most of the websites provided C&R information such as regulation (explicit and/or implicit), encouragement, motivation, or general information of handling fish but rarely referred to the criteria included in the C&R guidelines as summarised by Sims and Danylchuk (2017).
3%
24%
39%
26%
5%
2% 2%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Percentage of websites
Number of websites
Number of "clicks"
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Fig. 7. C&R quality score distribution. The left axis indicates the number and the right axis show percentage of websites with a particular quality score. Total number of websites was 66.
4.6. Word counts
Word counts for C&R information and guidelines also represented a high variability, from minimum three to maximum of 468 words (mean ± SD; 64.03 ± 84.85). As seen in Figure 8, numbers of words were clustered between 3 and 66 words. However, some of the websites had a high number of words compared to other websites which make the standard deviation higher than the mean value. Some information mirrored the official regulations from governmental policies, and some presented custom rules made specifically by the fishing operator for their specific water area. Moreover, some of the English translation was not well-written, in term of grammar or spelling.
Fig. 8. Word counts distribution chart. Each dot in X-axis represents each of 66 websites that own C&R information and guidelines, while Y-axis shows how many words used on each website. This chart shows the pattern of the number of words used to present C&R information and guidelines.
8%
48%
17% 17%
6% 3% 2% 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
1 2 3 4 5 8 12
Percentage of websites
Number of websites
C&R Quality Score
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Number of words used on the websites
Websites with C&R information and guidelines
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4.7. The relationship between the variables
There was a strong correlation between word counts and C&R quality score (Spearman test; ρ-value 0.000; ρ < 0.001). However, there was no uniform pattern on the wording and structure of the sentences.
A significant correlation was also found between information accessibility (click counts) and C&R information quality score (Spearman test; ρ-value 0.016; ρ < 0.05).
There was no significant relationship between the type of business and the C&R quality score (Kruskal- Wallis Test; ρ-value 0.929). Although the fact that the websites provided information on the type of C&R contributed to the overall C&R quality score, there were no differences in the quality score depending on the type of C&R (Kruskal-Wallis Test; ρ-value 0.274).
5. Discussion
5.1. Presence and accessibility of C&R information and guidelines
The study has revealed that almost half of the fishing tourism operators in Sweden that have websites in English language provide C&R information and guidelines on their websites. There are no many studies present that would investigate the presence of C&R guidelines on websites, but in one study in the United States Sims and Danylchuk (2017), only 8.7% of the sample websites on angling-based NGOs provided C&R best practice guidelines.
The presence of C&R information and guidelines in the fishing tourism operators' website could be seen as a manifestation of their support for conservation and environmental protection and their desire to provide an image of an environmentally-friendly company, and also as a way to communicate these values to their customers. In a similar manner, it has become increasingly common for companies to publish environmental policies on their websites as a way to show their concern for the environment and by this to improve their image. For example, among 200 global companies, nearly 60% existing environmental policies on their websites (Jose and Lee, 2007). Additionally, environmental nonprofit organisations in Canada utilise various online channels such as websites and social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) to disseminate their program and mission with their supporters and reach a wider range of potential supporters (Greenberg and MacAulay 2009).
This study has found that the C&R information and guidelines were generally easily accessed on the analysed websites. Only two clicks on average were needed to get from the websites’ main page to the C&R information and guidelines. A similar number was also found by Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke (2007) who investigated the number of clicks necessary to find C&R guidelines in the state and provincial agencies’ websites in North America. However, to date, few studies investigate accessibility of fishing related information.
The ease of accessing information on the website can be crucial to keep the user’s interest in gaining new knowledge. In this study low amount of clicks (i.e. easy access) was correlated with the quality of information presented on the websites, which may indicate higher commitment of particular operators to provide information on C&R that is both of good quality and easily accessible. For the other operators, the accessibility could be supported with a better website structure. For example, to improve accessibility, one could enhance website’s interface, including headers in every tab, or make improvements in website’s structure and resize, as well as reposition media such as video and pictures (Ismail and Kuppusamy, 2018).
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Information about regulatory C&R dominated as a type of C&R information that was found in this study and accounted for 68% of the 66 websites. At the same time, few websites (only 8%) suggested voluntary C&R. However, the existence of encouragement to release the fish as a form of voluntary C&R should not be underestimated. Voluntary C&R could support the general success in implementing the C&R practice, especially in the situations where regulation cannot be applied and when the voluntary C&R is suited-well with the objectives of specific actors, such as fishing tourism operator (Cooke et al., 2013). In the case of Swedish recreational fisheries, voluntary C&R, if encouraged, could work well due to the common attitude of the Swedish people who value and take care nature, which explains the high rate of C&R in Sweden (Ferter et al., 2013). Another alternative is a combination between regulation and encouragement to perform C&R which could be useful in increasing the C&R practice. However, this study showed that merely 20% of the 66 fishing tourism operators provided information on both types of C&R.
Another way to trigger the implementation of the C&R and encourage the anglers to practice it is to explain the logic behind the practice, i.e. the reasons behind it. In this study that was represented by the information about C&R motivation. C&R has been encouraged as a practice that has a positive impact on fish populations and/or a way of ensuring future possibilities of angling (Sutton, 2003; Arlinghaus et al., 2007).
In addition, C&R is also seen as a way to help the fishing business sustain their services in the long term (Hickley and Tompkins, 1998). However, knowing the reason and being motivated to do C&R is not sufficient to assure that anglers would do the C&R practice. However, a combination of regulation enforcement and education by various stakeholders such as state agencies and in this case fishing tourism operators could ensure the success of C&R. In addition, it is of crucial importance that anglers conduct the C&R properly. Otherwise, it will harm the fish survival rate and reduce the effort of sustainable recreational fisheries (Arlinghaus et al., 2007; Brownscombe et al., 2017).
5.2. Quality of C&R information and guidelines
The quality of the information that was present on the analysed websites was relatively low, with the average C&R quality score of only 2.77 out of maximum 17. Also, no website reached maximum score of 17 points; the highest score was 12 (1 website). Most websites provided only general information such as different C&R regulations or encouragement and motivation behind the practice, but not many (only 30%) referred to specific criteria outlined by Sims and Danylchuk (2017).
With respect to the type of business, it was expected that tourism operators that mainly provide fishing related services (fishing permit, fishing gear and/or guide) were most likely to provide C&R information compared to a business that offers fishing as complementary service (and focus on lodging, boat rental and/or food). However, this study revealed that operators that offered most comprehensive C&R information and guidelines were the ones who provided a combination of different services. For example, Mörrums Kronolaxfiske had the highest score (12 points) and provided fishing permit, gear, guide and lodging in their service.
Of those few websites (20 websites) that referred to some of the criteria by Sims and Danylchuk (2017), most (35%) included information regarding barbless hook. Using barbless hook has also been found to be commonly mentioned by the State agencies and angling-based NGO’ websites in North America (Pelletier, Hanson and Cooke, 2007; Sims and Danylchuk, 2017). Barbless hook regulations are also common in many C&R fisheries (Cooke et al., 2013; Brownscombe et al., 2017) because such hook reduces unhooking time which is assumed to decrease the mortality rate (Alos et al., 2008). For example, barbless hook has been shown to increase the survival rate of deeply hooked trout by reducing injury and handling times (DuBois and Pleski, 2007; Bloom, 2013)
