An Interdisciplinary Combination of Qualitative and Quantitative Research on the 'Skipper Effect' in the Tasmanian Commercial Rock Lobster Fishery

In this paper we report on a collaborative inquiry involving a human geographer and a mathematician-cum-data modeller. Our example is the existence and nature of a possible 'skipper effect' in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery. The term 'skipper effect' is used to describe the supposedly variable contribution of boats' skippers to catch. Following an introduction of the fishery and an outline of our research, we briefly introduce the skipper effect. We also discuss an approach to conceptualising knowledge before moving to our case study which we treat both qualitatively and quantitatively. Possible implications of the combination of qualitative and quantitative research for fishery management are also presented. In so doing, we relate a piece of work that is both multi-method and multi-disciplinary.