What would be the economic and behavioural consequences of altered recreational eel angling regulations in light of the European eel recovery action plan?

In response to the current eel (Anguilla Anguilla L.) decline in Europe, the European Union (EU) has implemented a Pan-European eel recovery action plan. Accordingly, each member state is expected to develop an eel recovery management plan. Beside other possible management options also more restrictive recreational eel fishing regulations are discussed. Predicting eel angler’s preferences for potential management actions, the associated economic impacts and behavioural changes are important steps in the management development process. Because eel angling is a non tradeable product we send out a mail survey with a discrete choice task to avid eel anglers (N=378) fishing in northern Germany to estimate regulation preferences and economic welfare changes in response to modified restrictions. Anglers preferred slightly up to moderately stricter regulations like the increase of the size limit and reduction of the bag limit. In contrast, anglers strongly disliked regulations which would limit their access to the resource (seasonal closure, rod limit). From the economic perspective, the implementation of some simple tools such as moderately increased minimum- size limits or slightly reduced bag limit would increase the economic welfare, whereas highly restrictive regulations would result in a considerable welfare losses (several million €/year). Furthermore, highly restrictive regulations would not lead to a clear eel angling effort reduction because eel anglers react inelastic in their behavioural response to stricter eel angling regulation. Consequently, managers must be aware that the level of angling regulation strictness result in different economic effects which must be considered for finding balanced management measures.