The incidental capture, or bycatch, of non-target species such as mammals, birds, turtles, fish and other marine species in fisheries is recognised to be a major problem in many parts of the world. It has been estimated that 23% of the global fisheries catch is thrown back into the sea dead and wasted. Globally, the toll on all cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is estimated to exceed 3...

Bycatch in longline fisheries threatens the viability of some seabird populations. The Hawaii longline swordfish fishery reduced seabird captures by an order of magnitude primarily through mitigating bycatch during setting. Now, 75% of captures occur during hauling. We fit observer data to a generalized additive regression model with mixed effects to determine the significance of the effect of ...

Penaeid shrimp is a major resource in India contributing about 7.4% of the total marine fish landings. They are mostly landed by small mechanized trawlers. Shrimp trawling generates large quantities of bycatch mostly consisting of juvenile fishes, due to use of small mesh size in codends of trawl nets. Juvenile Fish Excluder cum Shrimp Sorting Device (JFE-SSD) is a bycatch reduction device with...

BACKGROUND Minimizing fishery bycatch threats might involve trade-offs between maintaining viable populations and economic benefits. Understanding these trade-offs can help managers reconcile conflicting goals. An example is a set of bycatch reduction measures for the Critically Endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus), in the Northern Gulf of California, Mexico. The vaquita is an endemic s...

Bycatch studies have largely ignored population level effects on fish species of little commercial interest. Here we analyze bycatch of the lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus) in the bait-shrimp trawl fishery in Hernando Beach, Florida, providing the first fisheries data for this species. Based on catch per unit of effort (CPUE), size, sex, and reproductive status of trawled H. erectus, 1) app...

Artisanal: fisheries that are small scale and subsistence in nature, in contrast to industrial. Artisanal fishing effort is often unmonitored by regional fishery commissions. Bycatch: the incidental take of undesirable size or age classes of the target species (e.g. juveniles or large females), or to the incidental take of other nontarget species. Individuals caught as bycatch can be unharmed, ...

Commercial and subsistence fisheries pressure is increasing in the Gulf of California, Mexico. One consequence often associated with high levels of fishing pressure is an increase in bycatch of marine mammals and birds. Fisheries bycatch has contributed to declines in several pinniped species and may be affecting the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) population in the Gulf of Califor...

14 In the Barents Sea and adjacent water, fishing grounds are closed for shrimp 15 fishing by the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries Monitoring and Surveillance Ser16 vice (MSS) if the expected number of juvenile fish caught are predicted to exceed 17 a certain limit per kilogram shrimp (Pandalus borealis). Today, a simple ratio es18 timator, which do not fully utilize all data available, is in...

This study investigated potential finfish reduction devices (BRDs) for shrimp trawls. The major objective was to perform proof-of-concept studies of selected bycatch reduction devices and determine if any would be candidates for future in-depth evaluations for federal certification. Prototypes of new BRDs were obtained from shrimp fishermen, NOAA Fisheries staff, foreign assessments and univers...

Social networks can profoundly affect human behavior, which is the primary force driving environmental change. However, empirical evidence linking microlevel social interactions to large-scale environmental outcomes has remained scarce. Here, we leverage comprehensive data on information-sharing networks among large-scale commercial tuna fishers to examine how social networks relate to shark by...