I just finished my presentation to the Socioeconomic Panel of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in a conference room at the Grand Bay Miami Hotel.
The focus of the talk is a reef fish recreational demand model (red snapper, groupers and other snappers) and the resulting recreational values per fish. The Socioeconomic Panel makes policy recommendations to the Gulf FMC and there are some heated reef fish allocation issues in the Gulf. Fish allocation involves who gets the limited quota: recreational anglers or commercial fishermen.
This model is part of a project with Tim, Rob Hicks and Kurt Schnier. Hey guys, here are some things we need to do with reef fish based on their comments:
- Think about using Type B1 harvest in addition to Type A.
- Try pounds harvested in addition of numbers of fish harvested.
- Get rid of sheepshead from the "snappers" fish group.
- Model the value of the catch with diminishing returns.
If you are not familiar with the MRFSS data, and good for you, that's a lot of work. Here is a link to the presentation. Note: the models and policy analysis are highly preliminary (i.e., probably wrong)!
Tonight? I think Miami offers many opportunities for me to get into some sort of trouble.
