CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In Argentina, angling, netting and spearfishing are very popular pastime activities in both the marine and freshwater environment. Despite they perceived traditional and economic relevance, recreational fisheries in the country were largely unregulated, and no official long-term monitoring programs at the national level have been ever put in place, neither for the marine nor for the Patagonian freshwater environments. The Federal Fishing Regime (National Law No. 24922, the major legislation referring to marine fisheries in the country), establishes that the exploration, exploitation, conservation and administration of living resources occupying the adjacent territorial Argentine Sea up to 12 nautical miles (nm) from the coast are under the jurisdiction of the coastal provinces. That Law does not even mention the words ?recreational? or ?sport?, as recreational boat-based fishing rarely occurs beyond 12 nm from shore. Within provincial marine waters, there are few regulations applicable to recreational fisheries occurring along the coastal strip, and controls are at most, sporadic and insufficient. Those regulations were independently and uncoordinatedly elaborated by each province, mostly during the last decade. Of the five coastal provinces encompassing about 20 latitude degrees (~36°S to 55°S) of coastline, only Buenos Aires province has a thorough legislation for its whole territory, which includes 15 protected areas. In the remaining provinces (Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz, and Tierra del Fuego, Antártida and Islas del Atlántico Sur), the regulations for marine recreational fisheries are limited to a few protected areas (seven out of 37 coastal areas under provincial, national or shared jurisdiction). About 38 species of Osteichthyes and 15 species of Condrichthyes (out of approximately 600 fish species inhabiting the Argentine Sea) are the main target of recreational marine fisheries. Some shellfishes, crustaceans and cephalopods are also caught.As it occurs in the marine environment, in freshwater fisheries each province regulates the activity through its own laws. The most significant difference between both systems is that the Patagonian provinces were grouped into the "Consultative Commission of Patagonian Continental Fisheries" at the end of the 1990s. Each year, the representatives of the provinces included in the Commission discuss the general regulation scheme applicable in Patagonia. Although there are signs of declining quality in several salmonid recreational fisheries, the assessments of freshwater stocks in Patagonia are occasional. It is common to import regulations from other recreational fisheries targeting the same species, even with little local support. In general, there is a trend to increase the number of fisheries under catch-and-release regulations. Exotics salmonids are the principal target of freshwater recreational fisheries in Patagonia, but two native species (pejerrey Odontesthes hatcheri and perca Percichthys trucha) are also target species in some extra-Andean Patagonia basins.Undoubtedly, the management of marine and freshwater recreational fisheries in Argentina should be urgently improved. In this context, we are developing a smartphone app as a potential cost-effective technique to collect basic recreational fisheries information: mainly seasonality, targeted species, fishing areas and modalities, catch and fishing effort.

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