Fisheries Management and Aquatic Education in the Long Island/New York City Area: Lessons Learned Over the Past 30 Years

Authors: Ed Woltmann, Chart Guthrie, and Greg Kozlowski

New York’s involvement in urban fisheries can be traced back to 1978 when a 2-year demonstration project, modeled after a similar program in St. Louis, was initiated in New York City and other New York urban areas. Unfortunately, the program failed to consider the inherent differences between metropolitan New York and the Midwest in terms of what the public expectations were of such a program. While the St. Louis program achieved use rates of 4,000 trips per acres annually, the New York program only achieved use rates of 10 to 50 trips per acre annually, resulting in its demise in 1980. In 1990 the New York State Department Environmental Conservation began a new community fishing initiative in Nassau County (Long Island). This initiative used traditional and innovative strategies to encourage local government to work to improve the County’s freshwater resources; encourage individuals to try the sport of fishing; better manage existing fish populations and enhance existing fishing opportunities through a fall trout stocking program. These efforts contributed to an increase in angling participation from approximately 12,000 angler days prior to the initiative to just under 140,000 angler days in 1996.