THE SPORT nSHERY 191 



mainly with recreational fishing; and recognition of 

 sportfishing in fisheries legislation is desperately lacking. 



The resulting distrustful attitude of sport fishermen is 

 not conducive to cooperation and support. Dispelling it 

 should be the first step in sportfishing pohcy reform. This 

 could be done with an unequivocal policy statement and 

 commitment to sportfishing. Hence I recommend that: 



1. The government's policy should explicitl> recognize 

 sportfishing as a legitimate, valuable and significant 

 use of fish resources, and this should be reflected in a 

 commitment of stafl'and budget. 



In other circumstances such a pohcy statement would 

 be unnecessary. But in the current circumstances an 

 exphcit policy statement committing the Department to 

 sportfishing management is the necessary first step 

 toward improving its credibility among sport fishermen 

 and generating the needed confidence and support of the 

 sportfishing community. 



The Department cannot identify how much manpower 

 and expenditure is now devoted to sportfishing because 

 there is no administrative centre with sportfishing respon- 

 sibility; but it estimates that sportfishing management 

 and enforcement, disjjersed among personnel concerned 

 mainly with other matters, accounts for some 17 person- 

 years and $200 thousand in other costs. I cannot say what 

 an adequate provision would be (in Chapter 19 I propose 

 a Departmental review for such purposes), but given a 

 regional budget of $85 million and a stafl'of over 1,200 I 

 have no hesitation in concluding that the present provi- 

 sions are insufficient. 



Policy Objectives 



The general pwlicy objective prescribed in my terms of 

 reference is to ensure that the resources are used in a way 

 that will yield maximum social and economic benefits. 

 This raises two fundamental questions for sportfishing 

 policy; how much of the available catch should be alkv 

 cated to sport fishermen, and how this share should be 

 allocated among them? Both of these questions call for 

 an understanding of the essential values generated by 

 sportfishing and how they are aifected by regulatory 

 methods. 



Sportfisbing values The value generated by 

 sportfishing cannot be measured simply by determining 

 the value of the fish caught. This is a relevant measure of 

 the values generated by the commercial fishery, but it is 

 only incidental to the value of spxjrtfishing, which is 

 derived primarily from the associated recreational experi- 

 ence. The quality of this experience is undoubtedly 

 affected by the opportunity to enjoy a good catch, but the 

 fishing opportunity, not the market value of the fish 

 themselves, is what excites most sport fishermen. This 

 explains why most sport fishermen spend far more on 



fishing equipment, supplies and services than it would 

 cost to purchase their catch on the market, and why 

 many enjoy fishing even though they do not catch fish or 

 do not take them home to eat. 



Nor can the benefits of sportfishing be properly mea- 

 sured by calculating the expenditures on fishing equip- 

 ment and services. A sportsman will go fishing only if he 

 expects that his enjoyment will be worth more to him 

 than the outlays he must incur to fish. The net benefit is, 

 therefore, the excess of his enjoyment over his costs. 

 Expenditures on boats and other goods and services 

 referred to earlier in this chapter indicate the amount of 

 economic activity generated by the sport, but so far as 

 the value of recreational fishing is concerned they are 

 more indicative of the costs than of the benefits. 



The value of sportfishing, in terms comparable to the 

 economic value of other goods and services, is most 

 appropriately measured by the amount of money sport 

 fishermen would be willing to pay for it, not by what they 

 buy to compliment their fishing. There is a good deal of 

 confusion about this. The value of a movie, for example, 

 cannot be measured by how much the viewer spends on 

 transportation to the theatre and on popcorn or baby- 

 sitters, but by how much he is prepared to pay to see the 

 show. In the case of movies, entrepreneurs charge what 

 the market will bear and their receipts reflect the value of 

 their product to the public. In the case of sportfishing, the 

 government does not charge what the market will bear, 

 but nevertheless, the users' potential willingness to pay is 

 the correct measure of the value of sportfishing opportu- 

 nities. 



Because Canadian governments do not try to maximize 

 returns from spwrtfishing, the benefits accrue, for the 

 most part, to the anglers themselves rather than to the 

 resource owners (the people of Canada) generally. This 

 policy can be defended on socio-political grounds, but it 

 has the incidental effect of leaving no direct economic 

 indicators of the values generated. This can be estimated 

 only from indirect evidence. 



Studies conducted in British Columbia, Washington 

 and Oregon indicate that the average sport fisherman 

 would be prepared to pay about $15 per day for the 

 opportunity to participate in general saltwater fishing, 

 and $25 per day for trophy saltwater sportfishing and for 

 steelhead freshwater angling.'*' These are crude estimates, 

 and they were made in 1977, but they indicate the appro- 

 priate kind of measure for determining the value of 

 sportfishing. If the $15 per day figure were applicable to 

 saltwater sportfishing in 1981, the aggregate value gener- 

 ated by sportfishing in tidal waters would have been 

 about $30 million. 



The true value of sportfishing opportunities in this area 

 is governed by the quality of the recreational experience 



