Protecting Our Atlantic Legacy Reports

Turning a Blind Eye: The ‘See No Evil’ Approach to Wasteful Fishing

7/6/2006

Executive Summary

As the new home of MASSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Massachusetts can be contacted regarding this report.

Every year, the vast ﬂeet of trawlers, seiners, longliners, charter and private sportﬁshing boats, and other vessels that catch ﬁsh in our nation’s waters discard a large proportion of their catch, often dead or dying. Virtually all ﬁsheries, no matter how selective the equipment used or area ﬁshed, catch and subsequently discard signiﬁcant numbers of non-targeted species, referred to in ﬁsheries jargon as “bycatch.” Fishermen often throw these organisms overboard because they are either too small or have little or no economic value. In the majority of ﬁsheries, however, most discards are mandatory; federal regulations require that bycatch be returned to the ocean, as unharmed as possible. This action is intended to prevent the wanton overexploitation and potential decimation of populations of ﬁsh and other marine life, including not only ﬁnﬁsh, shellﬁsh, and crustaceans, but also birds, turtles, and marine mammals. Unfortunately, bycatch restrictions are often not implemented or enforced, and even if they are, a high percentage of the ﬁsh and other species that are caught and returned to the ocean do not survive.

The sheer number and amount of ﬁsh and other marine life that are unintentionally caught by hooks, traps, or in ﬁshing nets each year is staggering. In 2002, the bycatch in twenty-seven of the nation’s most important ﬁsheries totaled more than 2 billion pounds, the equivalent by weight of over 270,000 Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicles, more than ﬁfteen QE2 luxury liners, or 7 billion ﬁsh ﬁllet sandwiches. The full magnitude of the problem is unknown since, with few exceptions, ﬁsheries managers have failed to monitor bycatch, despite being required to by federal law. In order to manage our ﬁsheries effectively, ﬁsheries managers must account for the additional ﬁsh and other ocean wildlife killed as bycatch, so that healthy ﬁsh populations are not overﬁshed, sensitive or depressed populations are not driven to levels below which they cannot recover, and marine ecosystems are not degraded. Without good bycatch data, we are steering blind.

High rates of bycatch – and the ﬁshing practices that cause them – can have profound ecological effects, such as the alteration of food webs, shifting predator-prey dynamics, and habitat destruction. But bycatch is not just an ecological problem. Because it often comprises younger individuals of commercially valuable species that have not yet reproduced, if not controlled and accounted for, bycatch can lead to overﬁshing, reduced productivity and, therefore, reduced catch level over the long term. The economic consequences for ﬁshermen, processors, and consumers are enormous.

Ten years ago, Congress amended the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) – the cornerstone federal ﬁsheries management law – in part to acknowledge that bycatch is a major problem with severe ecological and socio-economic consequences. Among other things, the 1996 amendments to the MSA require that federal ﬁsheries managers minimize bycatch, minimize the mortality of bycatch that can not be avoided, and establish bycatch reporting plans for each ﬁshery they manage.

This report updates our 2001 assessment of bycatch in ﬁsheries managed under the MSA, focusing on the last ﬁve years (2001-2006). We report on the efforts of each council to address bycatch in the nation’s “dirtiest” ﬁsheries. These include ﬁsheries that account for the largest quantities of ﬁsh and other marine life discarded each year (discards), and those that feature the highest rates of discards relative to the amount of catch retained (landings). In some cases, the same ﬁsheries that discard the most ﬁsh have the lowest discard-to-landings ratios. In the worst cases, the poundage of ﬁsh discarded and discard-to-landings ratio are both high; it is in these, the dirtiest ﬁsheries, that the failures of ﬁsheries management are most glaring. While we found promising developments in some ﬁsheries, the lack of progress overall toward reducing or eliminating bycatch remains poor. Given the livelihoods and resources at stake, after ten years of expense and effort, we expect better. Here is a summary of our major ﬁndings.

Only one council out of eight has established a bycatch reporting plan for its ﬁsheries that meets the requirements of the MSA. Standardized reporting is a cornerstone of information-driven, science-based management. Development of the most effective solutions to the problem requires reliable information. It is no surprise that the North Paciﬁc Council has applied some of the most effective management measures to combat bycatch: the council has the information to back it up. Just as importantly, transparent reporting shines a light on a council’s action or inaction for stakeholders and the public to see. Without reporting, there is little incentive for councils to address the bycatch problem in a proactive way.

Bycatch data collection is grossly inadequate in most ﬁsheries. A standardized bycatch reporting methodology doesn’t help if there is no data to report. Currently, only 42 of roughly 300 federally managed ﬁsheries have observer coverage of any kind. NMFS and the councils share responsibility for the failure to secure adequate observer coverage in most of the nation’s dirtiest ﬁsheries. In many cases, observer coverage is less than one percent and is reliant on voluntary coverage, with few ﬁsheries meeting the 20 percent standard recommended by scientists. NMFS’ own analysis shows the current, deplorable state of observer coverage in the nation’s ﬁsheries and estimates the level of effort and expenditure required to correct it. Addressing this shortcoming should be priority number one for every council and NMFS region.

Most councils fail to adequately incorporate quantitative bycatch estimates into management plans. This failure is a major cause of overﬁshing for several priority species. For ﬁsh stocks that are caught in large numbers as bycatch, this amounts to a form of off-the-books accounting where major losses are not reported as part of the bottom line. This in turn leads to rosier estimates of stock status and subsequent higher catch levels, until the ﬁshery collapses and draconian measures are the only ones left in the toolbox. In ﬁsheries where quantitative bycatch data are not yet being collected at a sufﬁcient rate to permit estimates that are both accurate and precise, managers should apply a precautionary approach by assuming high rates of bycatch and adjusting target catch levels accordingly.

It is possible to reduce bycatch signiﬁcantly. So why are so few councils doing it? Most of the councils rely on measures to address overﬁshing and habitat damage - such as gear restrictions and closed areas during certain times of the year - to reduce bycatch indirectly. While these actions may well be beneﬁcial, bycatch must be addressed head-on through directed management measures. These include modiﬁcations to existing ﬁshing gear and development of new technologies. Managers should also create direct incentives to reduce bycatch through other measures, such as species-speciﬁc quotas on the amount of allowable bycatch, with triggers for the immediate closure of ﬁshing seasons in affected areas. The North Paciﬁc Council has shown that it can be done. Not all management measures will work in all contexts, but ten years after the passage of the MSA amendments, real action is long overdue.
Loggerhead turtle caught as bycatch.
Scallop ﬁshery bycatch.

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