Research trends and future perspectives of recreational fisheries in South America

ZUMPANO, F.; COPELLO, S.; FAVERO, M.; GARCÍA, G.

Conferencia; 3rd World Seabird Conference; 2021

Recreational fishing (RF) is a growing activity of great socioeconomic importance in many countries of SouthAmerica, providing social, cultural, food, economic and other benefits, but also producing negative effects on the ecosystems. Inspite of its importance, the effects of this activity on theecosystems and their species have received little attention in theregion, although effects are much better documented in other areas of the globe. With the aim of better understanding current researchtrends in RFs of South America, we carried out a systematic search ofpublished articles between 1995 and 2020 over Scholar Google, Scopusand SciELO in Spanish, English and Portuguese languages. The search used the following keywords: recreational fisheries,recreational fishing, recreational angling, sportfishing, game fishing, non-commercial fishing,angling, anglers, South America. Information contained in each of the 122 analyzed articles was categorized infour main areas (environmental issues, target species, management andsocioeconomic aspects). Fifty-five percent of articles addressed RFsin continental ecosystems, 43% in coastal-marine ecosystems and 2% inboth environments. The number of articles increased substantiallyfrom 2005 onwards, being Brazil (69) and Argentina (36) dominant inthe literature. Target species was the most frequent subjectaddressed in the studies (40%), followed by socioeconomic aspects(32%), environmental issues (22%) and management (6%). This trend was similar in marine and freshwater ecosystems. Less than 7% of articles referred to negative interactionsbetween seabirds and RFs, all of them in Argentine coastal-marineenvironments. Knowledge gaps and the application of ecosystem basedmanagement in RFs of South America is discussed.