Ugg.. something smells fishy here.. : ) The numbers seem completely outlandish.. 1 − 10 billion for recreational fishing in the US? There are, what.. 300 − 500 million total population in the US, I believe? Even assuming 10% are into fishing, would they consume 1 billion bait fish?
I’m extremely skeptical of this and strongly inclined to make a bet against this info being accurate. Currently considering what exactly I’d be willing to put money down against. My intuition is that these figures might be off by a factor of ten or more.
Ok, extremely random and extremely old necro, but:
The incredulity about baitfish size didn’t occur for me, the numbers seems pretty reasonable at first glance
It was quick for me (120 seconds of Google) to find multiple “touches” of information that supports these numbers. Writing this comment took much longer. Info at end of comment.
I guess the purpose of this comment is:
*mumbles some vague justification*⭐minimal trust investigations⭐ *mumbling continues* .
It’s good to check stuff out using Google and can be easy
Also, the program of research seems important, the welfare of farmed fish and aquaculture seems important
This has baitfish at a $1B industry. Given some guesses/intuitions of how revenue breaks down to cost of good sold (maybe $100-200M cost of producing the fish in terms of feed, amortized facilities), and some knowledge of the physical size of the fish, ag/aquaculture industry, 1-10B baitfish is an unfortunately believable estimate.
This study has measured regulation cost into the 8 figures ($12M). It also mentions hectares per farm.
I expect that if we back out the hectares using this paper (assuming it’s there), then multiply the hectares with the density we found in info 3a, we get big numbers (there’s thousands of hectares at least, maybe tens of thousands).
(I actually stopped here and didn’t track down the numbers.)
More points of evidence from the above:
The size and cost of regulation itself. If we have a net profit of 5-20%, that’s 50 to 200M net profit. So the size of regulation checks out to that number (if it’s a much larger fraction of net profit, that’s less believable and if it’s too small, the existence of the paper is less likely).
The fact that there’s a literature on baitfish, the existence of literature itself suggests it’s not a tiny industry.
Possible. It could be that the industry inflates the numbers because they want to seem bigger than they are. Note that baitfish is not even the most popular type of bait.
One thing to consider though is how many baitfish people take per fishing trip. After a brief search, I haven’t found exact numbers but this website is advising:
Request a discount when purchasing in bulk. Injured minnows may be sold at a discounted rate, but fish that are injured rarely thrive after a change in environment. Instead, request a free dozen for every 10 dozen that you purchase.
So I imagine that fishermen who do buy baitfish, buy a lot of it. I also read that they often don’t use them all and throw the rest into a lake, even though that causes ecological issues and everyone is asking fishermen not to do it.
In general, I understand your intuition and I will probably think about this more later.
I’m not sure how to look into this more. Note that the 1.17 billion figure is from the U.S. Goverment report so that should be dependable, at least for the lower bound. I think some more information could be gained by going to a baitshop, looking around and asking some questions (how many fish average person buys, is the industry on the decline, etc.). I myself can not do that because I’m not in the U.S.
Ugg.. something smells fishy here.. : ) The numbers seem completely outlandish.. 1 − 10 billion for recreational fishing in the US? There are, what.. 300 − 500 million total population in the US, I believe? Even assuming 10% are into fishing, would they consume 1 billion bait fish?
I’m extremely skeptical of this and strongly inclined to make a bet against this info being accurate. Currently considering what exactly I’d be willing to put money down against. My intuition is that these figures might be off by a factor of ten or more.
Ok, extremely random and extremely old necro, but:
The incredulity about baitfish size didn’t occur for me, the numbers seems pretty reasonable at first glance
It was quick for me (120 seconds of Google) to find multiple “touches” of information that supports these numbers. Writing this comment took much longer. Info at end of comment.
I guess the purpose of this comment is:
*mumbles some vague justification* ⭐minimal trust investigations⭐ *mumbling continues* .
It’s good to check stuff out using Google and can be easy
Also, the program of research seems important, the welfare of farmed fish and aquaculture seems important
Info 1:
http://www.ksuaquaculture.org/Species/Baitfish.htm
This has baitfish at a $1B industry. Given some guesses/intuitions of how revenue breaks down to cost of good sold (maybe $100-200M cost of producing the fish in terms of feed, amortized facilities), and some knowledge of the physical size of the fish, ag/aquaculture industry, 1-10B baitfish is an unfortunately believable estimate.
Info 2:
https://www.afs-oc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/F3905p201-211Drake.pdf
This article reports ~100M baitfish reported for Ontario, which has a population of 15M, or less than 5% that of the US.
Info 3a:
So we see ~250k-500k fish per hectare in the book “The Progressive Fish-culturist”:
Info 3b:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jwas.12416
This study has measured regulation cost into the 8 figures ($12M). It also mentions hectares per farm.
I expect that if we back out the hectares using this paper (assuming it’s there), then multiply the hectares with the density we found in info 3a, we get big numbers (there’s thousands of hectares at least, maybe tens of thousands).
(I actually stopped here and didn’t track down the numbers.)
More points of evidence from the above:
The size and cost of regulation itself. If we have a net profit of 5-20%, that’s 50 to 200M net profit. So the size of regulation checks out to that number (if it’s a much larger fraction of net profit, that’s less believable and if it’s too small, the existence of the paper is less likely).
The fact that there’s a literature on baitfish, the existence of literature itself suggests it’s not a tiny industry.
Possible. It could be that the industry inflates the numbers because they want to seem bigger than they are. Note that baitfish is not even the most popular type of bait.
One thing to consider though is how many baitfish people take per fishing trip. After a brief search, I haven’t found exact numbers but this website is advising:
So I imagine that fishermen who do buy baitfish, buy a lot of it. I also read that they often don’t use them all and throw the rest into a lake, even though that causes ecological issues and everyone is asking fishermen not to do it.
In general, I understand your intuition and I will probably think about this more later.
in https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=246812.0 an angler asks in a forum how many minnows should she buy for her fishing trip. The most common answer is 2-3 dozens.
I was wondering if it’s a difference between number hatched and number that make it to the one-year mark at which they’re sold?
I am similarly suspicious. Someone should look into this more.
I’m not sure how to look into this more. Note that the 1.17 billion figure is from the U.S. Goverment report so that should be dependable, at least for the lower bound. I think some more information could be gained by going to a baitshop, looking around and asking some questions (how many fish average person buys, is the industry on the decline, etc.). I myself can not do that because I’m not in the U.S.
One could potentially survey a representative fisherperson population?