The ocean fishery is an example of a common property
resource industry. Behavior of commercial fishermen is
determined by a complex set of economic, environmental and
social factors. All of these factors contribute to the
individual fisherman's success.
Fishermen learn to cope with the variability inherent
to their occupation. Two strategies are observed in fishing
behavior: The specialist who operates exclusively in
one fishery and the generalist who readily switches
fisheries according to market, social or management considerations.
Traditional fishery models formulated to predict the
behavior of fishermen have focused on the specialist.
Smith and McKelvey (1986) and McKelvey (1983, 1987) have
provided analyses to suggest these two fishing strategies
may co-exist in a fluctuating environment.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the Oregon
trawl fisheries for the presence of diversification in
strategy selection.
To gather the data necessary for testing the
hypotheses, interviews were conducted in the trawl
fisheries of Oregon, June through December 1985. Three
groups of fishermen are identified according to strategy
selection. Nominal effort differences and capital-to-income
ratios are examined for each strategy type.
Additional analysis is done to look at the components
of income determination through regression analysis. Discriminant
analysis is used to examine the fishermen's attitudes
toward switching, risk and management concerns.
Among the findings of this research is that
specialists and generalists do exist but they cannot
adequately characterized by exclusively economic measures.
Attitudes shown on the part of the fishermen indicate
they feel that management is a significant factor contributing
to income variability and strategy selection. / Graduation date: 1988
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/26853 |
| Date | 01 October 1987 |
| Creators | Harman, Ellen Jean |
| Contributors | Hanna, Susan S. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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