Did you miss me? Observing boating anglers to inform effective aquatic invasive species prevention messaging

The economic and environmental impacts associated with aquatic invasive species (AIS) introductions continue to rise, despite ongoing prevention measures. Education and outreach messages are foundational to prevention and the most effective messaging targets both specific behaviors and audiences. Most often, message development relies on self-reported behaviors which, while informative, can also be inflated due to social desirability or recall issues. Thus, obtaining objective behavioral information is essential to understand the situational context and what prevention behaviors are actually performed. Such knowledge can inform messages for specific behaviors and, theoretically, improve the likelihood of their completion. To that end, we observed boating anglers as they left select public water accesses in Minnesota to inform message development among an important segment of the boating community. Of particular interest were behaviors that complied with required and recommended actions such as removing vegetation from the boat, trailer, and equipment, removing the drain plug, cleaning equipment, and draining water from boat compartments and bait buckets. Across the summer of 2023, we observed 193 vessels at four accesses selected due to their comparability in design, traffic, and similarity in size and boating/angling resource. The majority of observed boating anglers took at least some of the required and/or recommended behaviors to prevent the spread of AIS. However, fewer than 50% comprehensively completed all required behaviors in accordance with Minnesota AIS prevention laws before leaving the public launch area. This gap represents an opportunity to improve prevention, education, and outreach among boating anglers to further limit the spread of AIS.