Finding Our Sea Legs:
Linking Fishery People and Their Knowledge with Science and Management

Drs. Barbara Neis and Lawrence Felt

The product of a 1998 workshop, Finding Our Sea Legs documents efforts in the North Atlantic Ocean to find a common ground between the natural sciences and the knowledge and lore of people who work in the fishery. Bringing Fishers' Knowledge into Fisheries Science and Management saw fishery workers, natural scientists and social scientists from several different countries congregate at Memorial.

The presentations from that workshop comprise the bulk of Finding Our Sea Legs; the editors also added “one or two papers we knew about that helped to flesh it out.”

Drs. Neis and Felt have been exploring this area for several years — Dr. Felt since the 1970s and Dr. Neis since 1990. In the past decade and a half, there has been what Dr. Neis describes as “a crisis in managed fisheries” all over the world. The northern cod crisis we face in Newfoundland is reflected in countries in both hemispheres.

Scientific knowledge leaves some gaps when managing a fishery. For example, catch rates are used as a measure of abundance, but factors such as technological innovation can give the impression of a continuous resource level when in fact more efficient gear is simply catching more of the available fish.

Fish harvesters often have very fine scale knowledge of a particular area, a fine scale that isn't possible with the large areas survived by scientists. People working in a fishery can also provide oral history of the abundance in that area. While this can't provide precise information for any particular point in time, it gives a very good idea of trends in an area.

Each of the book's five sections is prefaced by quotes from Bill Broderick, other fish harvesters, and scientists. Mr. Broderick sums up the spirit of the ongoing collaborative efforts when he says, “The relationship among fish harvesters, scientists, and managers has become critical to the future fishery, and like any relationship it must be based on trust and respect.”

Finding Our Sea Legs was published by ISER Books.