Recording how many fish are caught is one important requirement to measure the well-being of a fish stock — if scientists know the number of fish taken from the ocean, they can adjust management of that fishery to keep it from being overfished. Missing catch data, however, are rampant, causing concern that fisheries around the world are overfished.

A new by 91̽»¨ scientists finds that in many cases, this isn’t true. Specifically, misreporting caught fish doesn’t always translate to overfishing. The study was published online this month in the journal .

“While quantifying total catch is important for understanding how much is removed from the system, it is possible to manage sustainably even if we don’t know those numbers,” said lead author , a 91̽»¨doctoral student in aquatic and fishery sciences. “This paper shows there are some situations where, just because there is unreported catch, it doesn’t mean we are overfishing.”

The researchers modeled five different misreporting scenarios on a simulated fishery: complete reporting of catch numbers, constant over-reporting, constant under-reporting, increasing reporting rate over time and decreasing reporting rate over time. They found that in cases where misreporting was constant, the fish population could still be managed sustainably over the years because misreporting was proportional each year.

But in cases where misreporting increased or decreased year to year, those fisheries were found to be over- or under-fished.

In other words, the catch reporting trends — not the specific numbers of fish caught — are the most critical elements to consider when trying to understand a fishery’s overall status, the authors said.

“It turns out that if you know what the trend is in a fish population, it doesn’t matter as much if you don’t know the catch numbers perfectly,” said , senior author and a 91̽»¨associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. “Now we think we know better what impact unreported catch has on fishery status.”

A massive effort is underway through the University of British Columbia’s initiative to reconstruct the catch data for fisheries worldwide. It’s clear from this work that misreporting at a constant rate happens frequently in fisheries around the world. The 91̽»¨study connects with the reconstruction efforts by showing that many of these fish populations can still be well managed despite management being based on models using misreported catches.

Misreporting can happen at the dock, on the boat and in processing plants — and many fish aren’t counted due to illegal fishing, sport fishing or discarded fish.

No two fisheries are alike worldwide, and each faces its own challenges with management. Reporting what is caught is not always standard practice, and yet managers must evaluate each year the ability of a fishery to withstand fishing pressure. That, in turn, affects local economies and livelihoods.

Instead of spending exhaustive time and money on trying to count each fish, managers could instead ask locals about fishing practices over the years to try to understand whether a misreporting trend is at play. They could also complete more biomass or biological surveys to better understand the life history of the fish.

“It might not be wise to allocate all of the monitoring funds toward understanding what the total catch is because you might be able to manage sustainably without that information,” Rudd said. “Instead, if you could get a handle on the trends in each fishery, that might be a better use of funds.”

Branch saw the need for a broad look at misreporting when helping to manage southern bluefin tuna. Right before a big management change was enacted, scientists discovered there had been major under-reporting of tuna catches.

“My initial reaction was, ‘oh my goodness, we have been overfishing this whole time. When we model this, the fishery will be in a much worse state,'” Branch said.

But when scientists added the missing catch numbers back into the model, the tuna population status actually improved into the future.

“A takeaway of this study is to not be so alarmist when there are missing data, and instead understand the processes of how the data are used,” Rudd said. “Catch data don’t exist in a vacuum. To determine how the world’s fisheries are doing, you must consider the catch data with any other information available to make the management decisions.”

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation IGERT Program on Ocean Change.

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For more information, contact Rudd at mbrudd@uw.edu and Branch at tbranch@uw.edu.

During the past year and a half, four 91̽»¨graduate students participated in a working group tasked with creating policies to satisfy the 2008 law requiring Washington state to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

While the students didn’t succeed in passing new legislation, they may have found a way to connect budding environmental scientists and state policymakers. The students presented their experience at the recent meeting in Honolulu, and are now working on a journal paper.

The partnership took place through the Interdisciplinary Graduate Education and Research Traineeship, or IGERT, , now in its third year at the UW. Group members were , and in oceanography, and in Earth and space sciences.

The collaboration began when , D-Orcas Island, contacted Washington Sea Grant to ask about a that places students with management agencies. That ended up putting him in touch with the 91̽»¨students, who in 2012 offered to help him with ocean acidification and climate issues.

Soon after, Ranker joined the , which was in March 2013. The students ended up providing research support throughout that process that ran through the end of the year.

The working group included two Republican legislators, two Democratic legislators, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Students either drove down to Olympia for the eight monthly meetings or watched via teleconference. In between, they responded to Ranker’s requests for information or helped to read and analyze documents prepared by the consulting agency hired to manage the process.

They met with Ranker a couple of times beforehand, attended public forums in Seattle and Olympia, and helped interpret the 50- to 100-page reports prepared by the consulting group.

“There were crazy timescales,” Fassbender said. “Literally, we’d get a call and in two days need to get back to them with supporting information for the next meeting.”

“We struggled ourselves, splitting it up between the four of us,” Maloney said.

The students had imagined providing scientific expertise. But they soon realized those questions were better addressed by the 91̽»¨, and most of the disagreements weren’t about the science. Instead, they researched cap-and-trade policies, carbon-tax legislation and all the downstream effects.

They provided summaries and questions for Ranker to bring to meetings.

“He was looking for information on the job impact, for assessments of specific policies,” Bushinsky said. “He was comparing the economic advantages to the economic costs.”

While all this was happening, Gov. Inslee signed a climate with leaders of other West Coast states. But the state discussions failed to reach an agreement.

“The arguments were about real things that needed to be addressed,” Newsom said. “We were all pretty impressed with the level of knowledge of the people on the panel.”

In the end, rather than writing a bipartisan report, members of the two political parties each submitted their own documents with policies to meet the emissions targets.

Ranker offered his perspective as a five-year veteran of the state government.

“One of Kevin’s take-home messages was, ‘We didn’t agree on specific policies, but this is one of the steps that needed to happen for the long-term legislative process,'” Bushinsky said.

“Washington is no longer just debating climate change, we’re now discussing what to do about it,” Fassbender said. “That’s a big step.”

Will the experience affect their scientific careers?

“It changed the way I think about how science is used in policy,” Fassbender said. “And I might think about what other little things I could tack onto a research project where it could really benefit the state to have that information.”

While these students will go off to complete their graduate research, both sides say the experience could provide a model for future collaborations.

The IGERT program is supported by the National Science Foundation and the 91̽»¨College of the Environment.

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For more information, contact Fassbender at 206-526-6208 or afassben@uw.edu or faculty adviser Terrie Klinger at 206-685-2499 or tklinger@uw.edu.