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NOAA releases first national bycatch report
Establishes methodology, baseline for future studies
A
new NOAA report of data collected in 2005 will help the agency’s
scientists better monitor progress in reducing bycatch – the non-target
fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds caught incidentally in
fishing.
Bycatch
costs fishermen time and money, harms endangered and threatened
species, affects marine and coastal ecosystems, and makes it more
difficult for scientists to measure the effect of fishing on the stock's
population, and for managers to set sustainable levels for fishing.
Preventing and reducing bycatch is an important part of ensuring
sustainable living marine resources and coastal communities. The 2006
reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act, the nation’s principal law
for living marine resources, made bycatch reduction a priority, leading
NOAA to establish a bycatch reduction program to develop technological
devices and other conservation engineering solutions.
While
the National Bycatch Report does not represent an estimate of current
bycatch rates, it is the first to compile collect regional data about
U.S. commercial fisheries into one nationwide report, found that 17
percent of fish caught commercially were harvested unintentionally. The
report also details the numbers of marine mammals, sea turtles, and
seabirds caught incidentally during fishing operations in 2005. The
retrospective report provides a baseline for measuring bycatch reduction
and establishes a consistent, comprehensive methodology for future
studies.
“Fisheries
managers, the fishing industry, and the environmental community share
the goal of preventing and reducing bycatch, which is an important part
of ending overfishing and ensuring sustainable marine resources,” said
Richard Merrick, Ph.D., NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service chief
scientist. “This report helps us understand the extent of bycatch in the
U.S. and the quality of our data about bycatch. As we update this
report, we will see improvements in data quality and will measure the
progress we believe management measures and technologies are having in
reducing bycatch.”
Since
2005, important steps have been taken to address bycatch in fisheries
across the country. NOAA’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, which
began in 2008, supports scientists working side-by-side with fishermen
to test gear and fishing modifications which are often inspired by
fishermen. The program has helped generate changes in fishing practices
and technological solutions like “weak hooks,”
which bend under pressure to allow the heavier bluefin tuna to free
themselves from longline fishing hooks meant for yellowfin tuna and
swordfish.
Cooperative
research with fishermen across the country has helped design and test
fishing gear to avoid bycatch, allow nontargeted species to escape nets
or lines, and reduce harm to those species incidentally caught and
released. NOAA’s law enforcement personnel routinely assist fishermen
through outreach and education programs to ensure proper use of required
bycatch-avoidance gear, like turtle excluder devices.
The
report provides baseline bycatch estimates for 481 species, including
marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, and fish. It also presents
bycatch estimates for 81 fisheries, which are defined by a combination
of area, species, and fishing gear. A fishery can be made up of more
than one fish species.
The
report showed large differences between regions and fisheries in 2005.
In some regions, such as the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, where
fishermen can more easily catch fish without interacting with
nontargeted species, unintended catch of fish amounted to seven percent
in 2005. In other regions, where multispecies fisheries are more common,
fishermen may find it much more difficult to avoid nontargeted species.
The
report also evaluated the quality of bycatch data from the period for
152 federal fisheries or fisheries with federal data collection
programs, finding that 46 percent had high-quality data in 2005. NOAA is
working to improve the quality of bycatch data through regional
fisheries observer programs and developing best practices for estimating
bycatch. The report also includes recommendations on how bycatch data
can be improved.
To
complete the report, NOAA examined a variety of sources, including data
from at-sea fisheries observers, commercial fishing logbooks, and
production reports. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service scientists
from each regional office, science center, and headquarters office were
involved in developing the estimates and the report, including
scientists who undertake stock assessments for fish and protected
species.
Actions
by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, stakeholder groups, and
the regional fishery management councils have also reduced bycatch. In
the southwest region, bycatch of whales, dolphins and porpoises has been
reduced by half since 1997, when fishermen in the California drift
gillnet fishery were required to use acoustic pingers, underwater
sound-emitting devices that alert animals to the net, decreasing the
probability of entanglement. In Hawaii, longline vessels reduced seabird
interactions with fishermen by 92 to 95 percent by thawing and dying
fish bait blue to make it less visible to the birds. Catch shares and
industry-managed cooperatives have changed fleet behavior in Alaska and
the Northwest, reducing economic discards, or the disposal of target
fish that are of undesirable size, sex or quality.
The
Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NOAA’s conservation and management
measures minimize bycatch to the extent practicable. Bycatch data are
important information used by managers in setting annual catch limits
and scientists in producing stock assessments for fish and protected
species. Conservation and management measures are developed through a
public process by the eight regional fishery management councils, which
include members who represent commercial fishing, recreational fishing,
environmental interests, and academia. Improved data on the scope of the
problem and how bycatch reduction measures are working will help
councils and fishermen increasingly avoid the costly and wasteful
problem of bycatch.
NOAA’s National Bycatch Report is available online.
The agency continues to collect data on bycatch in preparation for the
next edition of the national bycatch report, scheduled for 2013. Future
editions in the report will be used to monitor changes and trends in
bycatch, including as a result of new regulations, bycatch reduction
devices, changes in fishing patterns, and population fluctuations in
both targeted and bycatch species.
NOAA’s
mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's
environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and
to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.
On the web:
Bycatch fact sheets by region: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/
Bycatch photo gallery: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/ National bycatch report: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/by_ NOAA Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program: 2011 Report to Congress: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/by_ |
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