The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wants to change the way it surveys recreational anglers. NOAA routinely collects information about what fishermen catch and their efforts as well as demographic data about the people who fish.
It does so as required under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to manage aquatic resources, using a combination of mail, telephone and in-person surveys.
The law has been amended to require NOAA to improve its efforts. NOAA has been experimenting with some alternates.
It now plans to replace the Coastal Household Telephone Survey with a mail survey asking how many people made how many fishing trips at the given address. NOAA also made some technical changes designed to get a better sample of anglers.
But NOAA also dropped a few other ideas it tinkered with. If you were sampled as part of any of the following, you won't be again. The dead ideas include the Longitudinal Sampling for Coastal Household Telephone Survey, Directory Frame Telephone Survey of Licensed Marine Recreational Anglers, the Angler Diary Recruitment Screening Questionnaire, and Biological Data Collection.
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