Discard Avoidance by Improving Fishing Gear Selectivity: Helping the Fishing Industry Help Itself

Abstract

To address the challenges of the Landing Obligation, fishers need to be able to adjust the selective performance of each fishing operation in response to what they observe on the fishing grounds and to what they bring on board. This will include strategies on where and when to fish but also on how to fish, which we examine here. In particular, we focus on ways to encourage and support fishers to design, develop and test selective gears that will avoid unwanted catches in the first place. To this end, we highlight the necessity to increase awareness of existing solutions, the importance of understanding the capture process and how fish react to fishing gears, and the need to evaluate the economic implications of new gears. We examine the success of science-industry collaborations and emphasise the benefits of a flexible regulatory environment. Looking ahead, the fishing industry needs to keep up-to-date with new technologies that can be used to observe the interaction of fish and their gears and with new approaches to modifying selectivity.

Predicting optimal combinations of by‐catch reduction devices in trawl gears: A meta‐analytical approach

“…By using the data already available, we were able to predict the combined selectivity of multiple BRDs and quickly inspect a great number of potential BRD combinations, without the time and cost outlay associated with experimental investigation. The use of this approach could ultimately speed up the identification of promising gear designs, thus aiding the industry in pursuing individual catch goals (O'Neill et al, ). Moreover, the meta‐analytical approach allows to determine whether an increase in complexity in the gear design, that is no.…”

“…Together with ecosystem‐based management approaches, BRDs have contributed to successfully reducing global discards of unwanted catches (Hall & Mainprize, ; Worm et al, ; Zeller, Cashion, Palomares, & Pauly, ). Nevertheless, continuous gear development is required for the industry to be able to cope with the variability in catch composition and management objectives (Kennelly & Broadhurst, ; O'Neill, Feekings, Fryer, Fauconnet, & Afonso, ).…”

“…To help promote awareness of the BRDs available and build future designs on the existing information, the scientific community has dedicated effort towards sharing the summarized results and/or data of the experimental trials through open‐access databases (e.g. http://www.discardless.eu/selectivity_manual; http://www.seafish.org/geardb/; https://tool.gearingup.eu/; O'Neill et al, ; O'Neill & Mutch, ). Moreover, results from different studies have been combined through meta‐analyses to extrapolate common patterns useful in designing future gear modifications (Fryer, O'Neill, & Edridge, ; Fryer, Summerbell, & O'Neill, ; ICES, ; Madsen, ).…”

“…Moreover, results from different studies have been combined through meta‐analyses to extrapolate common patterns useful in designing future gear modifications (Fryer, O'Neill, & Edridge, ; Fryer, Summerbell, & O'Neill, ; ICES, ; Madsen, ). Ideally, both scientists and fishermen could use this information to choose the most appropriate gear design with respect to their specific catch goals (O'Neill et al, ). However, for most mixed trawl fisheries, the optimal gear design is not constant; it varies, within and between years, according to management objectives (e.g.…”

Artificial light improves escapement of fish from a trawl net

“…(2017) placed LEDs within a SMP and found that lights stimulated escape behaviour in haddock but not in cod. Also, when implementing light as a tool to manipulate fish behaviour, technical parameters such as colour, intensity, wavelength and strobing need to be considered (Ben-Yami, 1976; Marchesan et al ., 2005; O'Neill et al ., 2019), which can also vary depending on the fishing environment. For instance, fish vision is reduced in deep water due to the lower ambient light levels (Kim & Wardle, 1998).…”