public opinion polling and survey research

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS)

Telephone Survey to Characterize Highly Migratory Species in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico

SRG recently conducted a telephone survey to interview approximately 8,000 permit holders of Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Angling and General and Charter/Headboat category permits. The data collection phase of this survey lasted only three weeks and required the utilization of most of SRG’s 40 state-of-the art telephone interviewing stations during the first few days of data collection. This survey effort provided NOAA with the fishery characterization information necessary to improve the accuracy, precision and reliability of highly migratory recreational fisheries data, and helped assess the magnitude and impact of potential biases associated with under-coverage of private access and nighttime fishing trips during dockside intercept surveys.

Due to the very specific nature of this survey effort and the need for interviewers to be able to converse proficiently with permit holders on the topic of fishing for specific types of fish, SRG researchers spent four days training with Ms. Sara Mirabilio, a fisheries specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program who works with vessel owners/representatives. Ms. Mirabilio trained the Project and CATI/Survey Managers on fishery terms and other pertinent information and introduced them to vessel owners/representatives who fish for HMS in order to provide SRG personnel with a better understanding of HMS fishing activities. Further, the Project and CATI/Survey Managers instituted a more rigorous training program for the interviews working on this project to teach them the specific fishery details needed to adeptly conduct this survey.

This project required all calls to be conducted over SoftPhone VoIP through the internet in order for NOAA personnel to be able to silently monitor the calls from their headquarters. This system also allowed SRG staff to listen to any interview conducted for this project to verify responses given and conduct quality assurance supervision of the interviewing staff.

Data management and return for this project was conducted using SAS programming. As with all SRG projects, every data element is checked for data entry errors, reasonableness in falling within an acceptable range, use of valid codes, and logic in relation to other data elements. Any records questioned and either corrected or verified will be reported in the final data return.