Lobster—trap commercial fishing grounds, Dana Point, Post MPA

This data set is a part of Point 97's project entitled: Establishing a Baseline and Assessing Initial Spatial and Economic Change in the California South Coast Commercial Fisheries. This project is a component of the California South Coast Marine Protected Area Baseline Monitoring Project that is designed to characterize the ecological and socioeconomic conditions and changes within the South Coast Region since MPA implementation. The South Coast study region extends from the north at Point Conception to the south at the California/Mexico border. This data set consists of data collected in the summer of 2013 from fisheries mapping interviews conducted with commercial fishermen who had lobster—trap landings in Dana Point in 2012. During interviews fishermen were asked to map their fishing grounds for 2012 and determine the relative importance of each fishing ground by allocating 100 pennies across their fishing grounds for this fishery. The spatial data from these interviews were then combined through an aggregation process where the weighted fishing grounds each fisherman gave were further weighted by their ex-vessel revenue from the lobster—trap fishery in 2012. This created spatial data sets for each port for this fishery. For regional or all port data sets, port level data was aggregated by weighting each port by the port’s total ex-vessel revenue in 2012 for the fishery based on California Department of Fish and Wildlife commercial landings data. This data set represents the spatial extent and relative value of lobster—trap commercial fishing grounds for Dana Point in the year 2012.