WP: Study: U.S. Fisheries Discard 22% of Catch (unwanted "bycatch")

[DeepModem Mom]

Study: U.S. Fisheries Discard 22% of Catch
Efforts Underway to Reduce Waste
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 1, 2005; Page A03


American fishing operations discard more than a fifth of what they catch each year, according to a new report by a team of U.S. and Canadian scientists.

The study, which was commissioned by the marine advocacy group Oceana and appears in the December issue of the journal Fish and Fisheries, represents the first comprehensive accounting of the amount of "bycatch" in the United States. Fisheries consultant Jennie M. Harrington, Dalhousie University professor Ransom A. Myers and University of New Hampshire professor Andrew A. Rosenberg used federal data collected from 1991 to 2002 to calculate which regional fisheries inadvertently kill the most unwanted fish.

The Gulf of Mexico topped the list, largely because its shrimp fishery had 1 billion pounds of bycatch -- half the nation's wasted fish in 2002. Gulf shrimpers, which typically drag trawl nets with steel doors across the ocean floor, discard about four times as many fish as they keep, according to the study.

U.S. fisheries on average throw away 22 percent, or 1.1 million tons, of the fish they catch....

***

A variety of unwanted marine species become trapped in fishing gear by vessels seeking a different catch and are then thrown away, including noncommercial species such as jellyfish and small crustaceans. The researchers did not include protected species, such as turtles, as well as mammals and birds in their study....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001948.html

[freethought]

1. Never seems to be a good answer to regulating commercial

fisheries. Bycatch, overfishing, destruction of benthic habitat. What the F__K do we do? Many years ago I was majoring in fisheries biology.
And it does not seem we are any closer to finding any good answers.

Some time ago, I was living in Mass. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry were able to move some federal money for a fishing boat-buy-back program. the govt would buy these excess commercial fishing boats to thin the fleet. The owner's could use the cash to pay off loans or fund reeducation of job training. What happened you ask? The effort was a total failure. The commercial fishermen took the cash, and lo and behold, they used it as down payments on even larger boats! And this was at the time when "outsourcing" and "downsizing" were becoming common words in American vocabulary. In some respects I was infuriated. There were alot of people at the time who had no choice but to acquire new skills, some at great expense, to stay employed. They knew that they had to adapt to changing job markets or end up in poverty. It irked me that commercial fisherman had it in their heads that they did not have to readapt or change for anything. In hind sight I was probably not thinking very rationally. I hated the job I was in at the time and there may have been "spillover".

Sorry folks! I'm ranting here.

[oneighty]

2. Your rant is a good one

I was in the fishing business. Hydraulic clam dredge, oysters, blue crab, shrimp and off shore; rock shrimp, grouper and snapper.

Crewing on a shrimp trawler we strikers were allowed to keep by catch sell it and keep the money.(On shrimp we work on shares) One day we leave the dock when dressed out flounder be bringing eighty cents a pound. On returning to the dock a week or so later it be bringing twenty cents a pound. In defense of our efforts we just throw the catch over the side of the boat. A terrible waste of protein and we no longer bother keeping the by catch (AKA Trash).

Turtles we try to save them with artificial respiration. Sting rays we capture with brutal hooks throw them over the side where they will die. Good meat in sting rays-same with small sharks.

A terrible waste.

180

[corporatemedia]

3. Is this some kind of "Catch 22"? eom

[Demonaut]

4. got to break a few leatherback sea turtle eggs to make an omelet