The Science of Spot Burning
You just caught a massive grassy after an intense and rewarding hole hunting session. Hopping out of the water, proud and exhausted, your dive buddy snaps a photo of you holding your catch and shares the photo on Instagram, tagging the exact location where you were hunting. A few weeks later, upon returning to the spot, you find many more fishers on the beach that you used to visit in solitude. Within months, your favorite spot, once teeming with life, becomes a barren wasteland no longer worth visiting.
Spot burning, the practice of identifying fishing spots via fishing reports, photos and geotagging on social media, is a very controversial practice. For most, great fishing spots are sacred and protected. Ask a fisher where they got their catch and you will most likely be told “the ocean”. Many will go to great lengths to disguise their location in photos, and ensure that their spot won’t be easily discovered and pillaged by newcomers.
To Post, or Not to Post: Ethics of Spot Burning
How far will you go to hide your favorite spots?
There is a general agreement that the increase in geotagging on social media has led to the overuse of many once-secret outdoor spaces, and this can be seen in the ocean as well. Finding good fishing spots takes a great deal of time, energy, knowledge and exploration, as well as a lot of trial and error. Many believe that finding your own spots is the most fun and rewarding part of it all, and that by eliminating this challenge, fishermen who lack experience and respect will over-fish the resource. Increased pressure on a resource leads to fewer fish, and more fishers in an area can lead to a dreaded no fishing sign as the activity becomes more obvious and intrusive. Many believe that the best way to keep the pressure low is by keeping your spots secret, ensuring a lasting and productive fishing spot.
However, some disagree with this exclusionary mentality, preferring to share information freely and create a more collaborative and communal environment for everyone. Local knowledge that was once reserved for those ‘in-the-know’ can be more accessible to anyone looking to find enjoyment in the outdoors and become more connected to their food through fishing. Resources like site maps, and discussions of sites on social media are intended to share good news, mentor newer divers and increase group knowledge of the area. This can be especially valuable for those that have to travel great distances to enjoy the ocean and may not have the luxury of spending lots of time in the water, or for newer fishers who may not have a lot of local buddies to take them out.
Both of these viewpoints are valid. On one hand (as we will explain in more detail below) excessive pressure on a resource in a localized area can cause long-lasting, damaging impacts on fish populations. Excessive pressure and overuse can also dilute the experience people get when they visit their favorite outdoor areas. For some people, protecting their favorite spots might mean keeping them a secret from everyone, but for most it simply means being respectful about how you share the information and how you use the resource.
On the other hand, participation in spearfishing is growing every day, which means more people using the same resources. At the same time, information is becoming easier to share and access. New divers are excited to get on the water and want to find dive spots that are productive and appropriate to their experience level. It is incredibly beneficial to newcomers and our community as a whole to openly share information, especially when it comes to safety and ethics.
Hiding your background when snapping the photo isn’t always a possibility, so sometimes we improvise! So where does this leave us? First off, this issue doesn’t need to be polarized. It often becomes an argument between “old guard” divers who fight tooth and nail to protect their hard won secrets, and newcomers who are just excited about getting out and shooting a good fish or two. The missing component here is respect. Respect for the environment. Respect for the other divers in the community. Respect for everyone’s collective enjoyment of the resource. Unnecessarily calling attention to a specific location on a platform where it will be permanently available to hundreds or thousands of users is not being respectful to the resource or to the rest of the community. However, neither is attacking someone who may not understand the etiquette involved, or refusing to be helpful when you have plenty of experience and information to share. It is important for all of us to understand that our actions in and out of the water have a great impact on the environments we enjoy and the people in our community.
As far as science is concerned: will spot burning lead to unsustainable take of the entire species? Not likely, but it may lead to slow recovery of the local population and fewer (also smarter) fish at that particular spot. It is worth noting that each species will be affected differently by fishing pressure and the recovery time of the population will depend on life history, management efforts and environmental factors, however certain trends are common.
To Maintain a Population, Fish Out Must = Fish In
In order to maintain a fish stock, there must be enough fish left to reproduce and replenish what is taken out. If fish are removed before they have a chance to spawn, the result will be a steady decline in the population(5). Resource management operates with this principle in mind, which is why stock assessments, fish movements and biological modeling are used to determine catch limits(1,6). Species that move around a lot may have less of a problem finding mates, as they can travel to other areas where population densities are higher. Fish (or invertebrates) that stay more or less in one spot run the risk of a longer recovery time because their lower population densities may make it harder to find mates (this is called the Allee effect(5)). This long recovery time is what we are currently seeing with abalone. One study examined a reserve over a number of years after it was opened to fishing, it found that there was a 65-78% decline in the population of red abalone after only 3 years. The study also found that there was a sharp decline in catch after only 1.5 years of fishing. Egg production and size of abalone were also negatively affected when fishing pressure increased(7). Abalone have a small ‘home base’ where they spend their entire lives, they are slow-growing and not a highly mobile species. They rely on close proximity to other abalone to spawn successfully, all reasons why abalone populations are especially vulnerable to over-fishing and challenging to rebuild. The reserve was closed to abalone fishing once again, and although the fishing pressure was removed, the population has not fully recovered(7).
Stocks Can Be Rebuilt
Nico and his 45” halibut from 2019. Do you recognize any landmarks? Although the research varies on how long recovery takes, it has been demonstrated that reducing fishing pressure leads to the recovery of fish stocks to some extent(1,3,7,10). This isn’t surprising! But environmental conditions and life histories also play a role in recovery(7,10). Because California has an extensive and well-managed network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), much of the research on fishing pressure was done within these areas within the last 20 years. One study of recovery rates found that while recovery rates varied, it would take at least 10 years for abundance to increase for any species after a protected area is established(9). Research on marine protected areas shows that when fishing pressure in an area is reduced (as is the case in marine reserves), species size, abundance and diversity increase within that area(7,9). Fish may leave the reserves as competition for food and shelter increases, leading to a “spillover effect” and higher fish abundance in non-protected areas as well(3). Intense fishing pressure in one spot may have the opposite effect- sending fish away from a heavily-trafficked spot in search of safer waters, and leading to smaller fish and fewer species.
Intense Fishing Pressure Leads to Smarter Fish
Maybe this is something you have noticed already when you visit a heavily-trafficked fishing spot. The fish seem smarter- they are tricky and evasive compared to their nonchalant counterparts in the protected areas. There’s research to back this up. One study on commercial trawling shows that intense fishing pressure actually causes evolutionary changes in fish, as the ones that consistently get away go on to reproduce, eventually leading to smarter, fitter fish that are less likely to be caught(4). This was also seen with hook and line fishing(8).
Just One Slice of the Pie
While heavy fishing pressure in one location may have an effect on someone’s particular favorite spot, the overall stock of a fishery (for example: the total population of rockfish in central California) shouldn’t be threatened by spot-burning as long as catch limits and other regulations are followed(1). Fishing regulations are designed to protect populations of fish from becoming over-harvested, and as long as people are fishing within these limits, the overall population of a species shouldn’t be diminished(6). Fishery management has brought back several species from previous over-fished status, including rockfish, lingcod and petrale sole among others. While fishing one spot repeatedly may not deplete the overall population of a species, it may deplete the resources in a particular area, which is a bummer for the fishers, and may be long-lasting depending on the species(9). If fishermen want to see continued abundance and diversity of fish in their favorite fishing locations, they might want to think twice before burning the spot.
Chapter Six - Marine Protected Area Networks in California, USA- Botsford et al., 2014
PRINCIPLES FOR THE DESIGN OF MARINE RESERVES - Botsford - 2003 - Ecological Applications
dynamics of fish populations at low abundance and prospects for rebuilding and recovery
The Master Plan: A Guide for the Development of Fishery Management Plans
Setting ecological expectations for adaptive management of marine protected areas