Oceana has released a report that exposes nine US fisheries that, combined, throw away almost half of what they catch.
Oceana says that these fisheries are also responsible for more than 50% of all reported bycatch in the US.
In the report, Wasted Catch: Unsolved Bycatch Problems in U.S. Fisheries, Oceana explains that despite significant progress in the last decade, bycatch remains a significant problem in US fisheries, with researchers estimating that approximately 20% of the total US catch is thrown away each year.
Anything can be bycatch, said Dominique Cano-Stocco, campaign director at Oceana. Whether it’s the thousands of sea turtles that are caught to bring you shrimp or the millions of pounds of cod and halibut that are thrown overboard after fishermen have reached their quota, bycatch is a waste of our ocean’s resources. Bycatch also represents a real economic loss when one fisherman trashes another fisherman’s catch.
Oceana says that open ocean trawl, longline and gillnet fisheries are responsible for the majority of bycatch in the US and are used by the nine fisheries identified in the report.
Researchers also say that the bycatch problem in the US is likely much worse than realised, because most fisheries do not have adequate monitoring in place to document exactly what is caught and discarded.
In order to reduce the amount of wasted catch and the number of marine animals killed in US fisheries, Oceana is calling on the federal government to: 1) Count everything that is caught in a fishery, including bycatch species; 2) Cap the amount of wasted catch in each fishery using scientifically based limits; and 3) Control and avoid bycatch by making improvements such as using cleaner fishing gear and enhanced monitoring.
Mercator Media Ltd 2014