Defining and estimating global marine fisheries bycatch

Unselective fishing catches non-target organisms as ‘bycatch’—an issue of critical ocean conservation and resource management concern. However, the situation is confused because perceptions of target and non-target catch vary widely, impeding efforts to estimate bycatch globally. To remedy this, the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine policy 2009-07, Vol.33 (4), p.661-672
Main Authors: Davies, R.W.D., Cripps, S.J., Nickson, A., Porter, G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bycatch
Bycatch Discards Over-fishing Policy Management
Discards
Fish industry
Fisheries
Fishery policy
Management
Marine
Marine resources
Measurement
Nature conservation
Ocean
Over-fishing
Policy
Resource depletion
Waste
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Unselective fishing catches non-target organisms as ‘bycatch’—an issue of critical ocean conservation and resource management concern. However, the situation is confused because perceptions of target and non-target catch vary widely, impeding efforts to estimate bycatch globally. To remedy this, the term needs to be redefined as a consistent definition that establishes what should be considered bycatch. A new definition is put forward as: ‘bycatch is catch that is either unused or unmanaged’. Applying this definition to global marine fisheries data conservatively indicates that bycatch represents 40.4 percent of global marine catches, exposing systemic gaps in fisheries policy and management.
ISSN:0308-597X
1872-9460
DOI:10.1016/j.marpol.2009.01.003