Maps of fishing locations are important in assessing fishery exposure to management alternatives and facilitates stakeholder outreach (e.g. the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, http://www.nefmc.org/library/omnibus-habitat-amendment-2 and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Amendment 16 to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan, https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/regs/2016/September/16msbamend16ea.pdf). Fishing location...
This study compares and extends existing approaches to predict the location of fishing activities. Using data from Northeast U.S. Fisheries, we show that the traditional spatial representation of fishing activities leads to a severe misrepresentation of fishing grounds and effort. Predictions based on probability models outperform most of the simplified...