Fish Learning as a Potential Factor in Reduced Catchability
Alexis D. Fedele, Nicholas W. Cole, Christopher J. Chizinski, and Kevin L. Pope
From the recent Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference I attended, researchers posed the question, "Do catch rates differ between harvested and non-harvested species in a naïve fishery after the onset of angling?" The answer turned out to be both 'yes' and 'no' depending upon the species looked at. Learned behavior was part of the answer, but so was natural behavior, along with catch and release mortality. They concluded, "As learning takes place, we hypothesize the existence of multiple vulnerable pools of fish determined by previous capture events."
A couple tables showing this relationship are presented below.
Brian, what was considered "natural behavior"? A natural wariness in response to presence of a predation? Some measure of vulnerability to angling? ...
Posted by: Paul Roberts | February 25, 2015 at 11:11 PM
Paul - I queried Alexis about this and got the following reply:
Hi Brian,
Thank you for your email! That's a great question. We used 'Natural Behavior' to describe things like behavioral changes due to seasonality, temperature changes, natural mortality, and other environmental and physiological effects that would occur in the absence of recreational angling.
I hope that helped answer your question.
Best,
Alexis
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | February 27, 2015 at 09:13 PM