Fishing For Food

This study will contribute to the sparse literature devoted to social, economic, and cultural characteristics of the non-indigenous subsistence fishers within the United States. The literature that does exist has just started to define subsistence fishing. Schumann & Macinko’s 2007 paper Subsistence in coastal fisheries policy: What’s in a word?, found that subsistence fishing within the United States covers a spectrum rather than narrow range the dictionary definition of subsistence would allow for. Thus far, studies or pilot studies of subsistence fishing have been conducted in areas in Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, along the Potomac River, and in Carteret County, North Carolina. Ebbin et al. (2017) piloted a study in Connecticut and found a general lack of understanding over the term subsistence existed. They did also note that where subsistence fishing did exist, many of the those surveyed either consumed or gifted their catch to friends and family that would eat it. This was the similar to the findings of Nieman et al. (2019 & 2021). For my thesis I assume similar conditions exist in Kitsap County. I intend to ask basic demographic, socio-cultural, and fishing habit questions to determine the type or types of subsistence fishing that exist. I can then answer other management questions researchers have posed in studies like those just cited.

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The Harper Fishing Pier in Kitsap County may be severely limited or removed. Yet, those who may take it down do not know who or how many subsistence fishers use that pier or what issues removal of that vital part of the physical fishing infrastructure may create for those who depend on it for part of their livelihood. Harper Fishing Pier is being reviewed by Kitsap Transit as a maintenance and docking facility for the fast ferry fleet.  This would disrupt not only fin fishing and squid jigging at Harper Pier, but also the SCUBA garden that has been cultivated for recreational divers. Transformation of the pier would also affect the ability of the locals to launch their kayaks and canoes from the float dock located there.

Kitsap County has a large Naval installation. The poverty rate was 7.5% in 2019 and the per capita income in the county was $58, 874, below that of Washington State’s $64,758 in 2019. The Kitsap County unemployment rate for the same period was 7.5%. These data suggest that subsistence fishing may be a lifeline for some of the local residents. With a population of  more than 270,000 people Kitsap County and 250 miles of saltwater shoreline it has 3.8 times as many people as Carteret County, North Carolina which also has 80 miles of saltwater shoreline, where there a group has already conducted initial studies on subsistence fishing.

In Connecticut, researchers found that there was a lack of understanding as to what subsistence fish meant, but that the activity was going on  (Ebbin, 2017). While the subsistence fish did not fall strictly into the “obtaining the things one needs for survival through self-provisioning” (Murton et al., 2016) category it was part of what Berkes, and later Schumann & Macinko, described as ensuring that there is sharing among the community. This sharing has become part of a refined definition.

In Washington State, studies have been done on the Indigenous Peoples and their subsistence fishing habits and customs, and who they are, but there is nothing on the non-Indigenous people who subsistence fish, what they do with their catch, or who they are. Despite this, the studies of subsistence fishing communities in the United States that have been published have come to the same conclusion: determining what type of subsistence fishing is occurring needs to take before management decisions are made on how subsistence fishers are managed.