Fishermen, How’s it Going? Professor Wants to Know

Jay Barrett/KMXT

If you have ever fished commercially out of Kodiak, there’s a chance you may have already gotten a University of Alaska survey in the mail – or soon will. Courtney Carothers is an assistant professor at the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences in Fairbanks, and she’s interested in knowing how fishermen feel about their occupation.

We’ve attached a copy of the survey if you’d like to look it over.

survey_instrument_05132012 780.74 Kb

— (Survey 1 41 sec "So for me, I’m hoping to … social dimensions of fishing policy.")

The survey is going to both permit holders and to crewmen to get a broad sample of responses:

— (Survey 2 34 sec "We’ll be sending the survey out … for good and for bad.")

Carothers says she wants to put the information she receives here in Kodiak into a global perspective:

— (Survey 3 28 sec "In our country there’s a lot of … the academic research that I do.")

One of the topics she’s interested in finding out more about is how attitudes towards fishing and community have changed over time:

— (Survey 4 54 sec "So I have a set of questions … be able to be managed better.")

Carothers picked Kodiak for her study after having come here as a NOAA research assistant while working on her PhD:

— (Survey 5 44 sec "You always hear, ‘Oh it was the … fishermen in the community.")

The two-year study is funded by the National Science Foundation. Carothers will share the results with community leaders and fisheries managers in hopes it will give them more perspective on attitudes towards the fishing industry and the community.

Carothers will be in Kodiak next week for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, and hopes to talk to fishermen then, and when she returns for two weeks in July.

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