Species Specific Recreational Demand: The Case of Trout Fishing in Alberta

Many native trout reintroduction programmes and non-native trout suppression programmes are being sold to the public on the fact that through these programmes anglers can catch more and bigger fish. Most studies of recreational demand lump all species within a category of fish into a single species such as lumping rainbow, brook and bull trout into trout. This study disaggregates the effects of individual species on recreational demand. Our goal is to understand the role of species specific characteristics on recreational demand that may or may not be observable. We find that the interaction between angler characteristics and species plays a major role in how anglers
choose locations.