How can bycatch be reduced

NOAA Fisheries already supports increased utilization in some fisheries. National and regional implementation plans will be developed in coordination with our partners. The objectives and actions presented below are designed to align ongoing and future regional, national, and international bycatch-related efforts with our overall goal of reducing bycatch and bycatch mortality.

This Strategy provides a framework for how these objectives work together across our programs to support bycatch reduction efforts. We are most effective in achieving our goal when we coordinate across our programs within NOAA Fisheries and with our partners and stakeholders. Cross-cutting and embedded within these objectives is an explicit recognition of the need to regularly evaluate our programs to ensure we are achieving objectives, learning from our experiences, and then continually improving based on new information.

We evaluate the effectiveness of our science and management programs to determine whether programs achieve stated goals and identify needed improvements. As new science and management approaches for bycatch are considered, and ongoing programs are evaluated, we will work to promote the most effective solutions.

When appropriate, we will revise programs to better meet conservation and management goals. NOAA Fisheries monitors and estimates the amount and type of bycatch and bycatch mortality in fisheries to understand the effects of bycatch on fisheries and the related ecosystem.

These data inform efforts to minimize bycatch and help managers to monitor the effectiveness of their conservation actions. With this objective, we seek to strengthen monitoring programs by using existing data collection methods e. We will develop and invest in new data collection techniques e. NOAA Fisheries conducts and supports research to improve assessments of bycatch on population and ecosystem dynamics, to modify fishing gear and operations to reduce bycatch, and to understand the socioeconomic effects of bycatch.

We are committed to supporting innovative research that reduces bycatch and increases survival of discarded or released fish and released protected species, through gear technology, bycatch avoidance programs, and increased utilization of economic discards. This research enables us to develop tools that can help us further minimize bycatch and its impacts.

NOAA Fisheries works closely with partners to develop and implement targeted conservation and management measures that reduce bycatch and the impacts of bycatch through a variety of mechanisms, including best practices, national and regional guidance, improved decision-making tools, policies, and regulations. We will continue to make decisions based on the best available science and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

In addition, we will work to promote actions that reduce bycatch by more effectively utilizing fish that would have otherwise been economic discards. We will continue to work with state, federal, and international partners to improve compliance with all applicable laws, reach out to fishermen about the importance of regulations to reduce bycatch, and conduct enforcement that supports compliance and effective implementation of fishery and protected species management measures.

Plans were instituted to immediately halt overfishing of these species and to give them time to recover. This led to the creation, in , of Rockfish Conservation Areas RCAs that were closed to bottom trawling, for any fish. One of these RCAs runs the entire length of the California coast along the edge of the continental shelf where it begins to slope downward to the seafloor. There are over 70 species of rockfish on the U. West coast, many of which are caught in the groundfish fishery.

The populations of some species, like the yelloweye rockfish pictured here, were overfished and their habitats damaged by deep-water trawls that drag the bottom.

A fishing quota program was also implemented for the West Coast groundfish trawl sector that included hard caps on catches. This meant that after a set number of restricted groundfish were caught, the entire fishery could be closed for the rest of the season to avoid risk of further bycatch. Independent observers were also required on each boat, to ensure compliance. These measures had their intended effects of immediately reducing the catch rates of the overfished rockfish.

However, they also had two unintended impacts. One was that by reducing catch rates so drastically and by not allowing catch from their prime habitats, there were few data streams available to assess the status of recovery of those fisheries. Scientists and managers could no longer monitor the distribution, abundance, or size structure of overfished species, limiting their ability to adaptively manage the fishery.

BRDs maximise the potential for fishing gears to avoid non-targeted species. Minimising the unintended capture of marine animals is a crucial part of professional fishing, it not only reduces the workload required to remove bycatch from the fishing haul but more importantly it minimises the impacts on marine ecosystems.

These bycatch reduction devices help to ensure that the seafood that ends up our plate is sustainable. A bycatch reduction device used in estuary prawn trawling is the square mesh codend. The codend of the mesh is made of a square mesh. The orientation of the mesh in this bycatch reduction device maintains the mesh opening allowing juvenile prawns and fish to escape whilst trawling. The square mesh panel is a bycatch reduction device used whilst estuary prawn trawling.

This device is constructed from a panel of square mesh that is specifically designed to exclude smaller fish from the catch. A nordmore grid is another bycatch reduction device commonly used for estuary prawn trawling. A guiding panel directs the catch toward the bottom of the grid. Large animals are guided by the grid towards an escape opening at the top of the codend, whilst prawns pass through the grid and enter the codend.

Beach hauling was one of the first methods of fishing carried out along ocean beaches by European settlers in Australia and is part of the history of many communities along the coast.

The ocean hauling fishery provides the community with fresh local seafood, bait and high value exports. Professional fishermen use a net that is deployed and retrieved back to a beach.