There are also cultural differences with how people approach natural resources, lead researcher and Mississippi State University s Human Dimensions professor Kevin Hunt says of his study. White people have this individualistic culture that s so different from African Americans. Black fishermen often make decisions based on what s going to help the group. African American fishers kept more of their catch, they would keep different species, things like that.
The data, however, is both complicated and limited. During his career, Hunt has largely focused on recreational fishing, the entry point for most fishermen. He and other researchers have found sparse opportunities to study race in commercial fishing, including producing data that examines just how many recreational, competitive and commercial Black fishers exist, in large part because of limited funding opportunities from organizations that don t value examining demographic trends.
By Tony Esposito2021-03-09T09:54:00
The Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF) will release this week a retention campaign aimed at keeping the new enthusiasts gained by the sports during 2020.
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Q&A with Stephanie Vatalaro
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications
, Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation
Author:
Stephanie Vatalaro, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications
, Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation
Boating and fishing have been continuous threads in Stephanie Vatalaro’s life. She was born in Ohio “into a boating family,” spending weekends aboard her grandparents’ boat on Lake Erie.
Things changed dramatically when she turned 7 and her immediate family moved to Islamorada, Fla. “When we moved there in 1983, it was the authentic Keys. A little more of that beatnik personality,” Vatalaro says. Her dad found his calling as a guide and offshore captain. “[He] really fell into and stayed with it a long time flats fishing, backcountry fishing. So I grew up in the fishing capital of the world, and my dad was a fishing guide, so obviously [I] spent a lot of time on the water growing up.”
The numbers donât lie. More Idahoans and people across the nation decided to take up fishing or return to fishing in huge numbers this past summer.
Experts, and at least one study, point to Americans rediscovering the outdoors during the pandemic. In Idaho, fishing license sales generally increase a few thousand each year, but this year more than 41,000 more people bought fishing licenses from January to through October compared with all of 2019 â 2019: 185,812 and 2020: 226,928 (Jan.-Oct. 31).
The rush to do more things outdoors did not go unnoticed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
âThe South Fork at times was especially crowded,â said James Brower, regional communications manager for Fish and Game. âCamping was more crowded. Those places that are well-known and easy to access and close to the major population centers, those places got pounded pretty hard.â