1-1 Appendix 1 Responses to survey questions administered to ...

Appendix 2 Responses to open-ended questions administered to TPWD fisheries
staff.
COASTAL ADMINISTRATION-- QUESTION 1.
RESPONSES: 8
What is the greatest strength/impediment in the agency’s ability to apply scientific
information to resource management?
• Strength – a long-term, consistent database to work with.
• The fishery independent and fishery dependent sampling programs are the
greatest strength in the agency’s ability to apply scientific information to resource
management. Without these programs, the quality and quantity of data would not
be available. The programs are well designed, statistically sound, tested, and
retested. They are court room tested. Their longevity, approaching 30 years, is a
test they also have passed. Data is worth a 1000+ words. When the TPWD
commission and executive office say we are science based, they do mostly rely on
and trust the data from our management programs.
• Scientific data generated from the coastal fisheries resource management
sampling program is incorporated directly into management decisions.
Management decisions are largely based on the data generated.
• Strength – long-term standardize data collection process and the resulting data
base.
• Strengths: High levels of professionalism and training in all levels of staff;
Scientific basis for resource and harvest sampling programs that has produced
ability to view long-term trends; Confidence of TPWD Commission and upper
level management in the validity of data-based conclusions.
• Impediment – The “turn-around time” of data from collection to master file
(available for analysis) is too long (can be 6 months or longer). This limits the
ability to react to potential problems quickly.
• The greatest impediment is the delay between the time data collection has
occurred and the time the data are available for use by decision-makers.
Currently we are working with an 8 month time delay, and we have recently had
up to a 12 month delay
• The impediments are minor compared to the strength of the overall programs. An
impediment is the standardization and repetitiveness of the sampling program
itself. Due to the nature of time consumption required by program staff in the
collection of data, they do not have adequate time to review, study, analyze and
really get to work with their data as they should.
• Another impediment is that frequently upper level decisions by division directors,
executive office, or commissions over ride data with personal agendas, politics, or
other pressures. Although these are often a good reality check, fear of controversy
by commissioners negates or dilutes power of data based decisions.
• Short response time lines, lack of data for non-game species/issues.
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