Scope of Global Fisheries Bycatch Detailed in New Report

A team of ecologists, marine biologists and other scientists have published a global account of bycatch from fisheries, illuminating the scope of the wasteful practice of fisherman discarding perfectly edible fish and killing sea turtles, marine mammals and other unintended victims as a consequence to their catch.

The researchers compiled data from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies published between 1990 and 2008 to obtain a global perspective on what kind of animals are being caught as bycatch.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers, led by Rebecca Lewison, an ecology professor at San Diego State University, revealed global bycatch hotspots and gaps in available data, including the lack of information on small-scale fisheries and ocean regions that are heavily fished by commercial fleets.

The researchers found that marine mammal bycatch is highest in the eastern Pacific and the Mediterranean; sea turtle bycatch is greatest in the southwest Atlantic, eastern Pacific and Mediterranean; and seabird bycatch is highest in the southwest Atlantic and Southern Indian oceans.

Lewison said the study "highlights the importance of looking at the bycatch issue across different species, fishing gears and countries. When you do that, it makes it clear that to address bycatch, fishing nations need to work together to report and mitigate bycatch. No single country can fix this."

The study comes at the same time as a new Oceana report that details the nine "dirtiest" US fisheries in terms of bycatch. These nine US fisheries, combined, throw away more than half of what they catch and are responsible for more than half of US bycatch.

Oceana's report, "Wasted Catch: Unsolved Bycatch Problems in US Fisheries," reveals between 17-22 percent of US catch is discarded every year. US bycatch could amount to up to 2 billion pounds every year.