This chapter examines the methodological challenges associated with collecting economic data from the for-hire fishing sector. A cost and earnings survey of charter boat operators in the Southeast United States serves as a case study. In the case study, a telephone survey was used to collect information about individual trips and a mail survey was used to collect complementary data about annual expenses. The results of the case study are used in the discussion of economic data requirements and survey methodology most applicable to the charter boat industry. Recommendations are provided for improving the design of surveys to collect economic data from the for-hire sector.

This survey provides economic data related to marine recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The data collected include preference and opinion information necessary to accurately measure the economic effects of regulation changes on the recreational fishing community. The mail survey design was stratified to cover three sampling frames: 1) the MRIP saltwater angler registry for private boat anglers 2) the LA for-hire angler license frame for these anglers and 3) volunteers intercepted by MRIP for for-hire anglers outside of LA. A stated preference choice experiment allows for the calculation of willingness to pay related to four important species.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. Environmental profiles are acquired during all surveys and are averaged into one meter depth bins. The data are acquired with Sea-Bird SBE25 and SBE9 profilers equipped with water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, beam transmittance, and fluorescence sensors. These are raw data that are unprocessed.

The Annual Economic Survey of Federal Gulf and Atlantic Shrimp Permit Holders collects data about operating expenses and costs of owning and maintaining shrimp vessels. Each spring, surveys are sent by mail to a random sample of about a third of all vessels with federal permits for the harvest of Gulf of Mexico penaeid shrimp or South Atlantic penaeid or rock shrimp. This information is used to assess trends in the financial and economic state of the fisheries, and to determine the economic and social effects of regulations and other factors affecting the Southeast shrimp fisheries. The individual information is confidential and only summary statistics are released to the public.

The Annual Economic Survey of Federal Gulf and Atlantic Shrimp Permit Holders collects data about operating expenses and costs of owning and maintaining shrimp vessels. Each spring, surveys are sent by mail to a random sample of 33 of all vessels with federal permits for the harvest of Gulf of Mexico penaeid shrimp or South Atlantic penaeid or rock shrimp. This information is used to assess trends in the financial and economic state of the fisheries, and to determine the economic and social effects of regulations and other factors affecting the Southeast shrimp fisheries. The individual information is confidential and only summary statistics are released to the public.

This survey gathered and analyze economic data from seafood processors throughout the states in the Gulf region. The survey sought to collect financial variables related to the firms market value, indebtedness, sales revenues, and selected itemized expenditures, plus procurement and distribution information. The basic unit of analysis was a seafood processing firm that performed some level of packaging, product modification, and other transformative process beyond harvesting seafood or acting as a first receiver in the seafood value chain. The population of seafood processing firms included all firms participating in the NMFSs annual survey of seafood processors for the baseline study year of 2009, a year specifically selected as a period that might serve as a representative year for business performance purposes. The survey was conducted in-person on location.

This data set contains ROV digital video data stored on DVDs and raw CTD data

The Annual Economic Survey of Federal Gulf and Atlantic Shrimp Permit Holders collects data about operating expenses and costs of owning and maintaining shrimp vessels. Each spring, surveys are sent by mail to a random sample of 33 of all vessels with federal permits for the harvest of Gulf of Mexico penaeid shrimp or South Atlantic penaeid or rock shrimp. This information is used to assess trends in the financial and economic state of the fisheries, and to determine the economic and social effects of regulations and other factors affecting the Southeast shrimp fisheries. The individual information is confidential and only summary statistics are released to the public.

This dataset contains information on the prices and fees charged by for-hire fishing operations in the Southeastern US.

This survey collected data to generate a comprehensive review of the economic and policy status of the recreational for-hire sector in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, including charter, head, and guide boats. The survey created a socioeconomic dataset that can be used to analyze future economic, environmental, and policy questions, including those related to natural disturbances and the ongoing regulation of resource utilization in the Gulf. The specific project objectives included a) collecting economic, social, and policy data for all segments of the for-hire sector b) identifying groups of respondents with relatively homogeneous characteristics, thereby defining operational classes that may be the focus of targeted, management-based economic and policy analysis and c) constructing costs, earnings, and attitudinal profiles by operational class and state/region. The survey was conducted by mail, internet, and in-person interviews in 2010.