Noëlle Boucquey

Abstract: Globally, access to wild fishery resources provides essential subsistence protein and livelihood support for millions of people. In urbanized areas of the global north, wild fishery resources--and the act of fishing for them--fulfill a variety of critical and overlapping needs that are not easily categorized as purely subsistence, recreational, or commercial: for food, socializing, cultural traditions, mental health, and connections to the environment and nonhuman species. At the same time, both regulatory and environmental changes can pose challenges to accessing these benefits. Employing a case study of fishing in Tampa Bay, FL, USA, this paper explores the challenges and opportunities involved in accessing wild fishery resources in a large metropolitan area. Using data from in-person surveys, field notes, and newspaper articles, we examine where people fish and how they respond to the shifting accessibility of fishing sites. We trace how access to fishery resources has changed both over the long term and more recently, after Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the region in 2024. We probe what limitations to access are most challenging for people, as well as the ways fishers exhibit resilience in the face of these challenges. In doing so, we engage with literature on provisioning fisheries, infrastructures of care, and abundant futures. We find that while fishers are often individually resourceful, a variety of intertwined physical and social infrastructures are important for fostering both individual and community resilience. Most essential are those infrastructures that enable diffuse water access across the region. Particularly post-hurricanes, it is important to focus on rebuilding local shore fishing infrastructures to support easier access to fishery resources and the provisioning benefits they provide. 

Abstract: Florida has some of the highest marine recreational fishing rates in the country and is well known as a recreational fishing “paradise,” where opportunities abound for excellent fishing. However, most estimates suggest that only around 30% of these fishers are women. Raising women’s participation in fishing is a policy goal in Florida and more broadly, since doing so would expose many more to the documented benefits to wellbeing and cross-species connections that fishing provides. In order to shed more light on the pathways women take into fishing (or are dissuaded from fishing), our research examines women’s engagement with recreational fishing in both real-life and online fishing spaces. Drawing on in-situ interviews with women fishers in the Tampa Bay region and social media analysis of women fishers nationally, we discuss the factors that may affect women’s decisions to engage in recreational fishing. Our preliminary findings suggest that while actual fishing experiences are often positive for women, their criteria for what makes a successful fishing trip can differ from men’s. Further, mixed positive and negative messaging on social media may complicate women’s assessment of recreational fishing in terms of its safety for women, attitudes toward new fishers, and levels of skill required to participate.

Abstract: In many coastal areas shore-based fishing trips exceed boat-based trips, yet recreational fishing policy attention often disproportionately focuses on boat-based activities. In this talk we highlight the contributions of shore-based marine recreational fishing to individual and community wellbeing, discuss ways to assess shore-based fishing activities, and make recommendations for incorporating findings into management measures. We draw on our experience researching shore-based fishing in the Tampa Bay region of Florida, USA. Our work illustrates that individual fishers often derive key benefits from shore-based fishing such as improved mental health, improved quality and quantity of social connections, and increased access to fresh protein. Further, shore-based fishing locations often function as important “third places” (not home and not work) in coastal communities, where diverse groups of people have the opportunity to interact. In these spaces, community wellbeing is enhanced as regulatory, environmental, and fishing knowledge is shared amongst fishers, social connections beyond existing networks are made, and care for places and species is increased. Simultaneously, challenges like ethnic and gender prejudices, environmental degradation, and disinvestment by policymakers in coastal public spaces threatens the full realization of these individual and community benefits. We suggest that the contributions of shore-based fishing to wellbeing are important enough to warrant further attention. In particular, we recommend that fisheries managers: (1) make greater efforts to assess and value the set of individual and community benefits of shore-based fishing in their particular geographic area; (2) work with local and regional planning agencies to preserve the often-dwindling access to fishing spaces in coastal areas that continue to develop rapidly around the globe; and (3) better incorporate shore-based fishers, particularly those who may be food insecure, as key stakeholders in the overall ecological health of nearshore fisheries.