Dr. Geoff Veniott of DFO’s Science Branch gave a PowerPoint presentation on the importance of Angler returns in helping develop management plans. As It turns out, only 7% of the anglers purchasing some 15,000 licenses are sending in the stubs and this is costing Govt. thousands of extra dollars. The extra cost is related to 2nd and 3rd mail-outs plus contracting a company to make phone calls.
Even after this they only get 35% of the anglers responding. SPAWN feels this isn’t good enough and if we are to expect more accurate assessment then we have to start helping by filing our stats. They can be mailed in or can be completed on-line at: https://www.inter.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/nl/salmoncounts/forms/salmon-angling