The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is planning a new survey of recreational fishing. It is asking the public for comments on the proposal before it goes ahead.
NOAA wants to know specifically how many people fish in saltwater recreationally. It plans to try new ways to find recreational anglers.
NOAA is also using the effort to test new survey methodology. Previous methods leave gaps, it found. It relied largely on telephone surveys, for instance, and history has shown that people respond better to mail surveys. Also, it used to be that NOAA could tell where people live by their phone numbers and that doesn't work in a cellphone era. NOAA needs to know where people come from because people in coastal areas will have different saltwater fishing habits than those living inland.
So NOAA plans to do this survey by mail.
NOAA plans to survey 5,131 people. It estimates it will take each an average of 10 minutes to complete the survey.
NOAA plans to ask about the amount of time people spend fishing, the number and species of fish caught and characteristics of those who fish (income, education, etc.).
For details, see http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-01-29/html/2013-01743.htm.
And for background, see the stories linked to below.
You can send suggestions by April 1.
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