By Brenna Large
In collaboration with the world’s most popular fishing app and The Nature Conservancy, Dr. Paul Venturelli and his team of graduate students completed a project to map marine recreational fishing efforts across the world.
This project detailed patterns of recreational fishing in countries, working with over ten years of catch records, which documented:
- Over a million catches,
- Over 2000 species of fish,
- By a quarter of a million fishers,
- Recorded from 184 countries and territories
Their study explored new methods for quantifying and valuing recreational fishing, which can provide critical information on the distribution of recreational fishing for coastal and marine spatial planning. The research shows the notable potential for developing accurate maps of recreational fishing, which would help global players understand the spatial importance of recreational fishing and sustainable management. The data from this report has also been added to The Nature Conservancy’s Mapping Ocean Wealth tool, allowing others to benefit from their research.
Dr. Paul Venturelli is the Associate Professor of Fisheries and Director of the PhD in Environmental Sciences. He came to Ball State University in 2017. His research has largely focused on studying fisheries science in the digital age. His lab has not only been producing innovative research, but it has also been providing students with experience in research and other critical data science skills. For Dr. Venturelli, his favorite part of the project was getting to work with his students together as a lab while developing “amazing maps that will make a difference by helping to protect marine recreational fishing around the world.”
For the students, this mapping project in particular provided an outstanding opportunity for collaboration with not only Dr. Venturelli but also with professional organizations and companies.
For Paton Willbanks, a Master of Science Student in Biology, working with global players has been invaluable. In her words, “This opportunity gave me firsthand experience with international collaborations, which will be invaluable in future work that relies on cross-border communication and policy understanding.” Her work on the project included reaching out to international fisheries departments to help their team learn how each country approaches recreational fishing and interpret information on various marine recreational sectors.
Josef “Josh” Hrabowski, a current PhD candidate in the Environmental Science program, is one of the student researchers of the Venturelli Lab. He was involved with multiple stages of the project, including the early data structuring and developing the visualization of the maps — he specifically tackled how to consistently visualize fishing hotspots across the globe. When asked about how this opportunity would help him with his future endeavors, he said, “Having worked with a large and well-known organization like The Nature Conservancy will be great for future opportunities alone. Potentially publishing a paper dealing with large datasets in an international context will also be useful, and, of course, the skills [I have developed] are highly sought after.”
Aaron Muehler, another PhD candidate in Environmental Sciences and a member of the Venturelli lab, developed many skills throughout this process. Muehler stated, “I took model-building skills, a deeper understanding of global marine fishing, and overall expenses that countries have for their respective fisheries.” He greatly enjoyed the work, explaining, “Being able to map global catches from a fishing app is just something that I find inherently fascinating, and I was really excited to see how catches were spread across the world.”
You can check out the Venturelli Lab Webpage for more information on fisheries science in the digital age, and how their team collaborates locally and around the world to utilize emerging technologies to sustain our aquatic resources.
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