Targeting bigger schools can reduce ecosystem impacts offisheries

Targeting bigger schools can reduce ecosystem impacts offisheries

Year of publication 2013

Product type Meeting

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Sustaibility of living resource exploitation relies on an ecosystem magement approach. Within tropical tu purse seine fisheries using fish aggregating devices (FADs), such an approach incorporates the reduction of bycatch, in par- ticular vulnerable species such as elasmobranchs. The levels of total bycatch (in mass) from fishing operations using FADs is known to be five times higher than when tu are caught in free-swimming schools. We intend to find practical solutions to reduce bycatch in FAD sets through the investigation of the relationships between the ratio of bycatch to target catch across different set size classes in all oceans. Ratios were always highest when catches were small, with the smallest class of catches responsible for the highest total portion of bycatch (23%–43%) while only contributing negligibly to the total tar- get catch (3%–10%). Reducing the number of fishing sets (a part of the total effort) while maintaining the same total yield could contribute to a subst antial reduction in the impacts of human activities.

Statutory body / Meeting title Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC)

Meeting symbol IOTC-2013-WPEB09-31

Meeting Session Number 9

Language English