Bycatch News
Since the 1970s, fisheries bycatch has been increasingly recognized as a factor responsible for reducing or liminiting the recovery of marine mammal populations in many parts of the world. A new study from the Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction reviews reported marine mammal bycatch from the last two decades.
I sat down to talk about the Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction's work with Andrew Lewin, who founded Speak Up for Blue, a website dedicated to communicating about ocean conservation.
Do circle hooks reduce bycatch?...It depends.
Last week, NOAA hosted over 160 marine scientists, fisheries managers, gear experts, and commercial and recreational fishermen, from 20 countries, in Coral Gables, FL, for the first international symposium on circle hooks in research, management and conservation. While we all came away more informed about circle hooks, we left with more questions about their effectiveness for catching target species and reducing bycatch.
The Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch has been featured in the August 22, 2011 New York Times Science article, "Fishing Gear is Altered to Ease Collateral Costs to Marine Life".
"The seafood on your plate is not the only animal that gave its life to feed you," is one of the messages from Tim Werner, the director of the Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction. While fishing for tuna, lobster, or other tasty seafood, we catch, injure, and kill other fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, sea birds, and invertebrates.
Workshop report from the 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals
Over 50 fishermen, whale scientists, fishing gear engineers, rope manufacturers, and marine wildlife disentanglement experts participated in a workshop to examine the dynamics of large whale entanglements in fishing gear.
The Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction was recently featured in an August 27, 2011 editorial in the Boston Globe, "Saving Millions of Fish".
In October 2013, researchers and fishermen from the United States, Europe, South America, Australia, and the Indian Ocean came together to identify reseach priorities for marine mammal bycatch mitigation techniques in longline fisheries.
The Consortium's research on barium sulfate gillnets to reduce bycatch of Brazil's endangered franciscana dolphin was featured in the Brazilian newspaper O GLOBO, "Novo tipo de rede promete ajudar a proteger toninhas"
NMFS is recommending that "weak" circle hooks, sized 16/0 or smaller, be required in the Hawaii-based deep-set longline fishery. "Weak" hooks are designed to retain the target catch, but release larger bycatch, like false killer whales (or bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico or pilot whales in North Carolina). The hooks release larger animals by straightening out when the animal puts tension on the line.