NORTH AMERICAN BLACK BASS COALITION
Anglers who target black bass account for a greater percentage of the angling-generated revenue across North America than any other species or species group, approximately $100 billion per year. Bass anglers are a highly organized group as well, with many local and regional bass clubs and tournament circuits from local to international in scale. Within fisheries management agencies, more effort is allocated for bass management activities than any other group. Even with all of this attention, however, controversies abound (e.g., culture vs. wild fish, impacts of tournaments, angling for spawning bass, closed seasons and sanctuaries, need for stocking, habitat loss, user group conflicts, animal rights pressures), and sometimes anglers, managers, and scientists find themselves on opposite sides of a position. As a consequence, there is a tremendous need for education and information sharing among the various stakeholders.
PROJECTS:
The initial goals of the NABBC center around developing methods to assemble facts surrounding controversial topics associated with various aspects of bass angling and deliver those facts to anglers. The strategy will be to have a geographically and philosophically broad-based steering committee organize and conduct a series of regional workshops to provide the forum for information exchange among anglers, managers, industry representatives, and fisheries scientists. The NABBC will develop an outreach mechanism through which this information will be disseminated to all anglers and the non-angling public. Finally, the input from these workshops will be used to develop an Action Agenda for NABBC future activities.
Contacts:
Steve
Pruiett
Steve
Cooke
Cory
Suski