4. Country examples: Croatia 3
4.1 DATA COLLECTION FOR STATISTICS
There are several different data collection systems according to the Freshwater Fisheries Act and its bylaws. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries Directorate (Ministry) keeps registers of all the data collected on freshwater fisheries.
The Ministry collects data and keeps a register about all the owners of fishing rights (the right of a person or legal person allocated by the state to organize sports fisheries, sell licenses to anglers and manage the fish stocks inside specified administrative borders), commercial fishers (owners of commercial fisheries licenses), borders of the fishing zones for commercial and sports fisheries, fish catch records in commercial and sports fisheries, management plans for six-year periods, yearly management plans sent by owners of fishing rights, and all the other relevant documents. From 2005, the Ministry has prescribed special uniform fish logbooks for anglers and for commercial fishers.
Compiled fish logbooks are collected yearly, by post or e-mail, by the Croatian Sports Fisheries Association (HŠRS) http://ribolovni-savez.hr/ (web page available only on Croatian language). HŠRS aggregates this data and sends it to the Ministry. The new Freshwater Fisheries Act was released in 2019, and will be fully implemented in the coming years. The data collection will be managed digitally by owners of the fishing rights or commercial fishers. They will have access to certain levels of the fisheries database. At present, the data collected is not realistic and does not reflect the real catch.
4.1.1 Recreational fishing
Recreational and sport fishing in Croatia’s inland waters is not distinguished – sport fishing is a common term, because according to the Sports Act, sport is a part of recreation and vice-versa. Sport fishing is permitted in running or standing waters under the concession of a fishing rights owner. Concessions are free, i.e. one does not have to pay the state in advance to own a fishing right, but 10 percent of every fishing license payment goes to the state budget.
All surface and ground water is owned by the Republic of Croatia and there is no private ownership of any water body, thus fishing rights for using and managing surface waters need to be obtained. These rights can be obtained through concession by the Ministry of Agriculture for a maximum 20-year period, by public tender. Owners of fishing rights (owners) should have a valid management plan (every 6 years management plans should be revised), made by authorized institutions. Owners of fishing rights must possess records of the quantity of sold sport fishing licenses. Every year, the state prints a certain amount of licenses in an official approved printer and these licenses are then distributed via HRŠS to the owners of fishing rights. At the end of year, the said owners are obliged to return licenses that are not sold to HRŠS as well as the number of sold licenses. Anglers can purchase licenses from fishing rights owners to conduct recreational (sport) fishing in a particular fishing water body or zone.
4.1.1.1 Data collection
Data is collected once a year. Fishing rights owners update a list of all the fishing waters (lakes and rivers) inside their fishing zone, mark any changes and send them to the Ministry. According to the new Freshwater Fisheries Act, the register will be digitally managed in the future.
3 This section refers to numerous laws, regulations and official decisions published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia https://www.nn.hr.
Anglers enter their catch data (only for fish which are not released) into the logbook prescribed by national legislation. It is forbidden for recreational anglers to sell the fish.
The fish caught and kept by anglers should be marked by cutting the lower part of caudal fin. Logbooks are available from the owners of fishing rights (owners). Anglers should also report the yearly catch data with the logbooks which must be delivered to the owners by the end of January. Owners collate all catch statistics and send them to the Croatian Sports Fisheries Association (HŠRS) by the end of March. HŠRS sends the aggregated data to the Ministry of Agriculture by the end of May. This system is very slow, but according to the New Freshwater Fisheries Act, the catch data collection and sharing will be digital in the near future. The statistics also include fishing by foreign visitors or by Croats living abroad, but this data is not separated from Croatian citizens’ data. Owners collect catch data, anglers’ personal data (name and address), serial number of licenses, and weight and number of 20 selected fish species (Table 5).
Recording of other species is not obligatory.
The catch data is used in fishing effort management at particular water bodies.
It guides the planning of restocking selected fish species. The Ministry of Agriculture reports to the European Commission, according to Art. 16 of Council Directive 92/43/
EEC of 21 May 1992, on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora. The list of reported species marked by * in Table 5 including starlet (Acipenser ruthenus) denotes fish data caught by commercial fishers.
TABLE 5
Fish species set by Ministry of Agriculture for data collection (weight and numbers caught) by owners of fishing rights and the origin of fish species (N-native, A-non-native, *reported to the European Commission)
English name Scientific name Origin
Common carp Cyprinus carpio N
Grass carp Chtenopharingodon idella A
Bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis A
Silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix A
European catfish Silurus glanis N
Zander Sander lucioperca N
Northern pike Esox Lucius N
Tench Tinca tinca N
Common bream Abramis brama N
Ide Leuciscus idus N
Asp Aspius aspius N
Gibel carp Carassius gibelio A
Grayling* Thymallus thymallus N
Huchen* Hucho hucho N
Barbel* Barbus barbus N
Danube barbel* Barbus balcanicus N
Italian barbel* Barbus plebejus N
Sichel* Pelecus cultratus N
Danube roach* Rutilus pigus N
Twait shad* Alosa fallax N
4.1.1.2 Compiling statistics
Recreational fisheries licenses are established by the national legislation act and can be sold as daily licenses or as licenses for the whole year. The funds paid for the license constitute income for fishing rights owners (owners) (80 percent), HŠRS (10 percent) and the State Budget of the Republic of Croatia (10 percent). Owners can limit anglers’
fishing effort for native fish species to protect fish stocks. Catch quotas cannot be set for non-native fish species.
In 2017, the number of registered owners in Croatian inland waters was 130 private or legal persons. For the most part, these are legal persons, such as sports anglers units, associations or higher forms of regional sports fishing alliances (for instance, some counties have only one owner, and some have 20 or so owners). The total number of anglers was 38 515 with a catch of 456 316 kg of fish (source: HRŠS, 2018). Raw data are stored by the Ministry and no special statistical analyses are performed.
There are several problems with the use of catch data collected with the described system. Perhaps the main problem is that owners of fishing rights only send aggregated data. From such a data it is not possible to make an analysis for each water body or for the trophic levels of different fish species (i.e. limnophyle vs reophyle). Also, catch data collected for large rivers (Sava or Danube) are not separated, thus comparison with catch data collected from commercial fishers (see Chapter 4.1.2) is not possible.
Furthermore, data from catch and release fishing is not collected.
4.1.1.3 Data availability
Collected data are available to fishing rights owners, HŠRS and the Ministry however monitoring studies are publicly available, on demand. The establishment of new freshwater fisheries digital database will make fisheries statistics publicly available.
The new database will consist of several layers of approach, so that every fisheries topic will have its own database. The information which is now available to the public consists of basic fishing regulations and it is available on the Ministry website https://ribarstvo.mps.hr/default.aspx?id=2802
FIGURE 11
Map of Croatia with indicated bordering area of the Sava and Danube rivers
Source: Palm et al., 2019.
4.1.2 Commercial inland fishing
Commercial fishing is only allowed in fishing areas in the Sava River and the Danube River according to the Freshwater Fisheries Act and its sub-act. Licenses for commercial fishers are issued by the Ministry of Agriculture which also establishes the types and quantities of fishing gear allowed, and the annual catch quota.
4.1.2.1 Data collection
Commercial fishers (owners of commercial fishing licenses) must keep records of fish catch on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. The Ministry of Agriculture provides logbooks with the licenses. Completed logbooks are returned to the Ministry by post or e-mail every month (by the 10th day of each month). A completed annual logbook is sent to the Ministry by January 31st. According to the New Freshwater Fisheries Act, catch data collection and sharing will be digital through a special mobile application, so it should be also more easily monitored by fisheries inspectors. Commercial fishers report the total weight and number of selected fish species caught (Table 6).
Data is used by the authorized institutions to calculate catch fishing quotas for commercial fishers. According to the Act of Nature Protection, besides reporting to the Ministry of Agriculture, commercial inland fishers must send reports of non-native fish catch to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy before selling fish on the market.
4.1.2.2 Compiling statistics
A limited number of licenses can be issued annually: (1) for the Sava River a total of 20 licenses; (2) for the Danube River a total of 50 licenses. Annual catch quotas of commercially-important fish species are regulated and limited at each fishing zone (see Chapter 4.6). Catch of non-native fish species is not limited. So far, prescribed catch quotas have never been exceeded, according to commercial fishing statistics.
The Ministry only keeps raw data and no particular statistical analyses are performed. Not all commercial inland fishers report their fishing data as required by legislation. Most of them do not record the whole fish catch and some do not send any report, so they are penalized.
There are several problems with the current data collecting system also due to incomplete reporting. The catch from different fishing gear cannot be distinguished.
Commercial fishers and anglers are obliged to report the catch of different fish species, which makes the comparison of collected data difficult. It seems that the catch quotas set for some fish species are not reasonable. For example, tench is characteristic in
TABLE 6
Fish species set by Ministry of Agriculture for data collection (weight and numbers caught) for commercial fishers to report
Fish species Weight (kg) No. specimens
Common carp (Cyprinus carpio) + +
European catfish (Silurus glanis) + +
Zander (Sander lucioperca) + +
Northern pike (Esox lucius) + +
Sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) + +
Common bream (Abramis brama) + +
Asp (Leuciscus aspius) + Not prescribed
Ide (Leuciscus idus) + Not prescribed
Other indigenous species* + Not prescribed
Other non-native species + Not prescribed
backwaters (Simonović et al., 2017) and not in main courses of large rivers, thus commercial fishers will never catch the given quota. A second example is starlet: starlet quotas should be lower because this species is under national protection and is on the verge of extinction. The highest catch of commercial fishers is recorded for Danube bream but there is no catch quota prescribed for this species.
4.1.2.3 Data availability
Data from commercial inland fisheries is not available online. The commercial fisheries statistics are available only upon request to the Ministry of Agriculture for the monitoring studies.
4.2 CASE STUDY: THE SAVA RIVER FISHING AREA WITH COMMERCIAL AND