Collaborative Research

Collaborative Research ( also known as cooperative research) in fishing refers to when scientists and fishermen work together to conduct experiments to find information used for  fisheries management. Fishermen  bring experience on the water and repeated observations of fish and their habitat that can be used to generate hypothesis and utilized in data collection. Examples of cooperative research includes commercial fishermen participating on vessel surveys, scientists charting fishing vessels, university and government scientists designing new species specific surveys, fishermen conducting experiments to improve gear efficiency or reduce bycatch. Cooperative research has a history that parallels that of fisheries research and has evolved since the 1870’s along with the agencies and institutions of fisheries science (from  Cooperative Research in the National Marine Fisheries Service (2003))

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