Bycatch caps at the fishery level can spur a race for fish (before bycatch caps are reached) that can actually increase bycatch rates and reduce the amount of target species harvested ( Holland and Ginter, 2001 Abbott and Wilen, 2010). These approaches, while sometimes effective at reducing bycatch, are often costly and inefficient ( Abbott and Holland, 2013). Traditional approaches to bycatch management rely either on command-and-control measures such as gear restrictions or closed areas, or bycatch caps imposed at the fishery level ( Hall and Mainprize, 2005). ![]() A discard ban in Europe was adopted after more than 650,000 signed a petition calling for “discards” to be banned following a series of programs by television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall ( De Vos et al., 2016). NGOs have successfully harnessed consumer pressure to incentivize bycatch reduction, most famously with the development of the dolphin-safe label for tuna, which led to global changes in tuna fishing methods to reduce dolphin bycatch ( Teisl et al., 2002 Ward, 2008). Fishery managers and industry also face pressure from interest groups. United States law mandates that “conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (a) minimize bycatch and (b) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch.” This, along with strict legal requirements to eliminate overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, has put increasing pressure on fishery managers and the industry to reduce bycatch. The analysis demonstrates the ability of these fishers to keep bycatch within aggregate limits and keep individual vessels from being tied up due to quota overages.įishing gear, particularly trawl gear, often has limited selectivity and captures fish or marine fauna that are not the target of the fishery. In this article we discuss the formation and structure of these risk pools, the bycatch reduction strategies they apply, and outcomes in the fishery in terms of observed bycatch avoidance behavior and utilization of target species. The risk pools also require vessels to share information about bycatch hotspots enabling a cooperative approach to avoid bycatch based on real-time information. Consequently the industry has developed risk pools in which bycatch quota for a group of vessels is pooled, but vessels are required to follow practices that minimize bycatch risk including temporal and spatial fishing restrictions. Catch of these species is rare and uncertain, making it difficult for vessels to meet strict individual performance standards. Chinook bycatch can include fish from endangered populations and rockfish stocks were recovering from severe depletion though most are now rebuilt. The fishery is subject to sector-specific bycatch caps for Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and several rockfish species (widow rockfish– Sebastes entomelas, canary rockfish- Sebastes pinniger, darkblotched rockfish– Sebastes crameri, Pacific Ocean Perch (POP)- Sebastes alutus, and yelloweye rockfish- Sebastes ruberrimus). The United States Pacific whiting fishery uses mid-water trawl gear to target Pacific whiting off the United States West Coast. ![]() 2Department of Economics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.1Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, United States.
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