National Bycatch Reduction Strategy
This 2016 National Bycatch Reduction Strategy builds on the 2003 strategy and works to enhance the effectiveness of current programs—both domestically and internationally—while reflecting today’s challenges, laws, regulations, and policies. Under the MSA, bycatch is defined as fish that are harvested in a fishery, but that are not sold or kept for personal use, and includes both economic and regulatory discards. Economic discards are fish that are discarded because they are of undesirable size, sex, or quality, or for other economic reasons. Regulatory discards are fish that are caught but discarded because regulations do not allow fishermen to retain the fish; for example, fishermen may be required to discard fish under a certain size or of a specific species for conservation reasons. Most countries have jurisdiction over the waters within 200 nautical miles of their shores, called the exclusive economic zone, set by the Law of the Sea.
The illustrations provided with these guidelines, as well as the bullet-pointed handling notes, can be used to develop 2-page laminated fisher-friendly ‘Flips’ that contain clear, concise, bullet-pointed instructions pertinent to each specific fishery. Any fish that crosses the path of a drift net in the ocean may be tangled or caught in the net. In 1994 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated global by-catch rates to be as high as 27 million tons of fish discarded by fisheries each year. Many individuals of non-target species perish as by-catch in the cast of each drift net. Species caught as by-catch include sharks, dolphins, whales, turtles, sea birds, and other marine mammals.
The nets are kept vertical in the water by floats attached to a rope along the top of the net and weights attached to another rope along the bottom of the net. Drift nets generally rely on the entanglement properties of loosely affixed netting. Folds of loose netting, much like a window drapery, snag on a fish’s tail and fins and wrap the fish up in loose netting as it struggles to escape. However the nets can also function as gill nets if fish are captured when their gills get stuck in the net.
Since nets are placed and may not be retrieved for days, air-breathing mammals that become tangled in the nets drown if they are unable to free themselves. In certain areas, exemption from punitive measure due to the unintentional by-catch of marine mammals, as outlined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, is extended to commercial drift fishermen. NOAA Fisheries is committed to continuing to reduce and minimize bycatch now and into the future, where it is problematic or required by the MMPA and ESA. For the purposes of this Strategy, reducing bycatch includes efforts to minimize the amount of bycatch, as well as minimize the mortality, serious injury, and adverse impacts of bycatch that do occur. In addition, reducing bycatch can also include actions that increase utilization of fish that would otherwise be economic discards.
Some bottom trawl nets are fixed with chains that slap the seabed, “tickling” fish into the net above. “Rockhopper” trawls are fitted with heavy tires that roll the net along a rough and rocky seafloor. In dredging, a related form of fishing, nets with chain-mesh bottoms are dragged through soft sand to catch species like scallops. Unfortunately, trawlers are not selective when it comes to their nets being swept across the ocean floor, resulting in anything and everything being drawn inside, and often resulting in a large percentage of bycatch. Drift netting is a fishing technique where nets, called drift nets, hang vertically in the water column without being anchored to the bottom.
Requires recovery plans for listed species that identify the priority actions to conserve and recover the species, which may include bycatch reduction measures as appropriate. Requires that conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, minimize bycatch, and to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch. Japanese drift net fishing began to draw public attention in the mid-1980s when Japan and other Asian countries began to send large fleets to the North Pacific Ocean to catch tuna and squid. Those fishing boats were blamed not only for indiscriminate destruction of marine life, but also for poaching North Pacific salmon, harming the U.S. and Canadian fishing industries, and threatening the jobs of fishermen who did not use such methods.
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. The National Bycatch Reduction Strategy, developed in collaboration with partners, includes objectives and actions that build on past successes and guide NOAA Fisheries’ efforts to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality. Different types of trawl nets are used to fish in the midwater and along the seafloor . Pelagic trawling is often used to catch large schools of small fish such as anchovies; bottom trawlers target bottom-living fishes like cod, halibut, and rockfish.
In the 1990s, drift net fisheries were responsible for 30,000 tons of sharks and skates in global by-catch annually. While filming National Geographic’s Incidental Kill in the California Channel Islands where swordfish and various sharks swim north, the divers discovered that many drift net boats had placed nets that night. The nets were one mile long each and nearly 100 feet high placed to target swordfish and thresher sharks. They swam half the length of one net and in that length discovered 32 dead blue sharks in the net as well as 2 hammer head sharks, a sea lion, and a manta ray all of which were thrown back into the ocean when the net was hauled in.
Drift nets lost or abandoned at sea due to storms causing strong currents, accidental loss, or purposeful discard become ghost nets. Synthetic nets are resistant to rot or breakdown, therefore ghost nets fish indefinitely in the oceans. Marine animals are easily tangled in ghost nets as are the predators the dead animals attract. The float line on the net allows it to be pushed in the current which causes ecological damage to plant life and substrate habitats as the nets drag the sea floor. Improve the availability of information from bycatch program assessments/reviews to fisheries managers and stakeholders. Work collaboratively with outreach and gear technology specialists to improve the compliance of fishermen with bycatch mitigation requirements.
Here a green turtle that was accidentally caught in fishing gear is about to be returned to the wild by WWF staff. It is estimated that over 300,000 small whales, dolphins, and porpoises die from entanglement in fishing nets each year, making this the single largest cause of mortality for small cetaceans. Species such as the vaquita from the Gulf of California and Maui’s dolphin from New Zealand face extinction if the threat of unselective fishing gear is not eliminated.
Dion Liriano is a 51-year-old American zookeeper who has retired from the business. He was once a highly successful director of the Zoo and Aquarium, but he has since hung up his gloves and moved on to other ventures. Dion's passion for animals began at a young age, when he would help his father care for their family pets. This love grew exponentially when he started working at the zoo; Dion quickly became one of the most experienced keepers in the business. He credits his success to the relationships he built with both staff and animals over the years.