What is Bycatch & Why Should You Care?
Overfishing is known to be the biggest threat facing our oceans, but just because it’s the most notable, that doesn’t mean it’s the only major threat out there.
The unsustainable nature of our fishing industry, which sees many billions of fish being removed from the sea at an alarmingly rapid pace, has a dire side effect. In this mad dash to purge the ocean of its natural resources, bystanders are being caught in the crossfire.
Bycatch is an ecological disaster that is seriously underplayed on the international conservation platform. Responsible for widespread habitat destruction, ecosystem collapse and cultivating the potential for irreversible extinction events, bycatch is a widely legal practice that goes largely unnoticed.
Today we explore bycatch, its problems and its potential solutions.
What Does Bycatch Mean? Understanding Bycatch
Bycatch, sometimes known in the fishing industry as ‘unwanted catch’ or ‘discards’ is the accidental catching of non-target species during fishing. A fishing vessel will likely travel to a specific area to catch a specific species of fish. Bycatch is considered any animal caught within nets or on lines that are not intended to be caught.
Bycatch is commonly observed in commercial fishing, both large and small scale. A staggering 40% of all fishing is bycatch, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Credit to Mongabay for this video on bycatch, a conservation news web portal that reports on environmental science, energy, and green design.
What is an Example of Bycatch?
A fishing trawler heads out to open waters and casts its large nets with the aim of catching tuna. In range of the net are many tuna, but in the midst of the tuna are other species, including other fish, turtles, sharks and even dolphins. As the fishing boat pulls in the net to catch the tuna, all the other species swimming with them are pulled in as well. Dumped onto the deck of the fishing boat, the majority will have already died before they can be released.
Remember that 40% of fishing is bycatch, which means these animals don’t appear on a rare, freak occasion, but are a part of almost every fishing run carried about by the trawler.
What Causes Bycatch in Our Oceans?
Demand is the true answer, but the more practical response is simply fishing vessels and fishing practices. The consequence of indiscriminate and non-selective fishing practices is that we’re not aware of what we’re really catching until it’s already caught.
What Are the Worst Nets for Bycatch?
There are three commonly used practices which are considered the worst offenders for bycatch figures, although it should be noted very few commercial fishing practices can totally avoid bycatch:
Gillnets - gillnets are tall and long grid nets that catch fish by the gills as they swim through, preventing them from swimming out again. Gillnets are difficult for large species of animals to see until they’re already tangled up in the nets and unable to escape their grim fate.
Longlines - longline fishing uses many baited hooks spread out across a single line. The problem with longline baiting is that there is no knowing what animals will be attracted by the bait. Oftentimes, it’s not the species fishing crews are after that get caught, but sharks, turtles and even seabirds
Trawling nets - massive nets that sweep through the ocean like enormous plastic bags, trawl nets collect everything in their path and scoop them up into a pouch of fish mixed with bycatch.
All these fishing practices are completely non-selective. The fishing crews can only put the nets and lines into the water and see what comes back up.
Old gear is also a problem. Fishing gear that has been left behind after expeditions can lead to the entanglement and subsequent drowning of large marine species, with dolphins, turtles and whales being particularly susceptible to death by old fishing gear.
What is the Impact of Bycatch on Marine Life & the Ecosystem?
To put it bluntly, catastrophic.
Bycatch is the biggest threat out there right now for some of the world's most endangered aquatic animals. The vaquita porpoise, in particular, suffers greatly at the hands of bycatch, and is known as being the most endangered mammal on the planet. Other species like sea turtles, large birds, dolphins, sea lions and sharks all face population devastation due to bycatch.
Here are some figures:
10,00 dolphins drown in fishing nets each year as bycatch
50,000,000 sharks are caught in nets and die as a result of bycatch, per year
300,000 large aquatic animals, including whales and turtles, are lost each year to bycatch
200,000 seabirds die each year through bycatch, including large and rare birds like albatross
10,000s of thousands of tons of coral are destroyed, caught in nets used in fishing.
Sharks are known as the vacuums of the sea. They are integral to controlling food chains and regulating ecosystems. Whales are known as gardeners of the sea. They move nutrients around our oceans and help ecosystems grow and thrive. Coral reefs are known as guardians of the sea. They protect against erosion, provide sanctuaries for marine life, and create jobs for people, too.
The species destruction caused by bycatch has a devastating impact. The result is that the ecosystems of our oceans suffer in big ways. Animals at the top of the food chain are lost, ecosystems lose their balance, and when ecosystems lose their balance, they can collapse.
This has ramifications for all of us. As we’re becoming alarmingly aware, humanity is reliant on the delicate balance of global ecosystems for everything from food to climate regulation. If we allow bycatch to annihilate our ocean’s wildlife, it will be all living creatures that bear the consequences.
Bycatch is nothing new, yet it’s only within the last few years with documentaries like Seaspiracy gaining notoriety that it’s really starting to enter the public’s consciousness. As awareness increases, we’ll likely learn even more about how deeply bycatch is changing our oceans, but for now, most of the information is focused on the loss of megafauna, like whales, dolphins and sharks, and we know the loss of these species is incredibly concerning.
Seaspiracy talks about the impacts of bycatch.
Who is Responsible for Bycatch?
It’s easy to put the blame for bycatch on large fisheries that trawl the seas for masses of fish, but even small and local fisheries can have problems with bycatch. Many small and local fisheries will use long lines to catch their fish, but these indiscriminate killers can result in many unwanted deaths.
Blue sharks are a really good example of a species that is ravaged by smaller-scale fishing operations. Many thousands are killed each year as local fishers attempt to catch other prey.
Given the scale of these operations, the bycatch is certainly lower in terms of overall volume than larger commercial fishing activities, but sadly, it simply isn't the case that buying local will prevent bycatch from occurring.
Are You Contributing to Bycatch?
Yes (most likely) if you eat seafood.
Unless you are incredibly careful about the seafood you eat, to the extent you only eat seafood that you know has been harvested from methods that cannot result in bycatch, such as indoor circulating tanks or freshwater lakes cultivated for specific species, then you are consuming catch that also causes bycatch.
Can Bycatch be Reduced and Managed?
Yes, it can. In some instances, bycatch can be limited by up to 95%.
Modification of gear - Simply changing the kind of hooks and equipment used to catch fish can dramatically reduce the rate at which the wrong species is caught
Selective nets - Researchers have been able to develop new types of nets that are designed to capture certain species of fish and implement safeguards to lower the risk of other marine animals getting caught in the nets.
Excluder devices - When large mammals are caught in nets, it’s very hard for them to escape. Excluders are devices that create ‘hatches’ in nets, allowing large species to swim out if detected early enough.
Deterrent noises - While arguably unethical in their own way, deterrent noises can be used to save lives at the cost of pain and discomfort. These loud underwater noises are designed to target marine mammals with sounds that are painful and unpleasant. When deployed near netting, the animals are likely to swim away to avoid the sound, and therefore, the nets as well.
Acoustically visible gillnets - Perhaps one of the most ingenious solutions developed in the fight against bycatch is acoustically visible gillnets. These nets can be detected by marine mammal sonar, which makes it much easier for at-risk species like dolphins and porpoises to avoid the nets.
Location-based fishing strategy - Technology might be making great strides toward lower volumes of bycatch, but in some regions of the world, the best methods remain locally insight and knowledge. Fishing in the right areas, away from known populations of non-target species, can be an effective way to reduce bycatch.
Education - Similar to location strategy, bycatch reduction can also be about the sharing of other forms of knowledge. By working with small-scale fisheries, conservationists have been able to reduce bycatch by teaching locals about what kinds of practices are harmful, and which are lower risk.
None of these methods offers a 100% reduction in bycatch, but they have all been shown to be at least partly effective in cutting down on the number of recorded bycatch following implementation.
Attempts to limit bycatch
Are Bycatch Reduction Methods Being Used?
Not really.
Data suggests bycatch safety methods are still considered pretty novel by modern standards of wildlife protection. By and large, regulations remain incredibly loose around the world, with poor reporting and management methods in what many consider a fairly lawless landscape.
And, while you might be forgiven for thinking that regulatory standards would be tighter in developed nations than across the developing world, this is simply not the case.
The Bay of Biscay, located off the coastlines of both France and Spain, is notorious for dolphin bycatch, with thousands of common dolphin killed every year in this region alone. Despite attempts to implement stricter regulations to secure the safety of these animals, the Bay of Biscay, bordering two of the largest economies on Earth, remains an almost lawless landscape of bycatch, one that could see the dolphin population wiped out in a few decades if practices continue.
Outside of the simple lack of regulatory standards for bycatch, and therefore, a lack of reduction methods deployed to comply with laws, there is another big problem.
Even in regulated spaces, reporting of bycatch is low.
When faced with reporting bycatch figures and dealing with the consequences of regulations, or simply not saying anything and chucking bycatch back into the oceans, even major players in the industry have admitted to flouting the laws.
Our oceans face a lack of protection, and no transparency when it comes to bycatch reporting, leaving them free to be exploited at great cost.
How Do You Stop Bycatch?
Activists and conversion groups are routinely putting pressure on governments and regulators around the world to introduce new laws governing the protection of our oceans. Supporting these groups and their causes is perhaps the most effective way we as a community can improve regulations and reduce bycatch figures.
A few groups to follow and support are:
Tackling Bycatch at Home
Is there anything you can do at home to help stop the deaths of animals like whales and dolphins that are caught and drowned in nets not meant for them?
Fortunately, yes!
Bycatch is simply the result of fishing, much of which is for us. If we as a collective community reduce the amount of fish we eat, demand for fish goes down, there is a reduced need for fishing boats to be out catching fish, and this in turn cuts down on the amount of bycatch we see in our oceans.
Cutting down on seafood bought from supermarkets will likely make the biggest difference, but as we’ve highlighted, bycatch can occur at every level of fishing, so even reducing locally caught seafood (or seafood from smaller fisheries) can help.
However, if you want to reduce bycatch but don’t think you can reduce your seafood intake, then smaller fisheries and local catches are definitely the best choice, so simply switching from supermarket to local (and knowing where the seafood came from) can make a positive change.
Certifications for sustainability are also worth looking out for. Fisheries implementing methods to reduce bycatch are much better places to source your seafood than places that don’t. Once again, this often comes down to knowing where your seafood comes from.
Seafood Watch is a great website for helping you find out more about your seafood, where it comes from, and if it’s caught using practices that cause bycatch.
Bycatch: A Deeper Dive
The Ethical Problem of Bycatch
Any and all approaches to bycatch reduction are an effort to limit the impact that fishing has on affected species, but it must be noted that bycatch can only be reduced, not entirely prevented, by these approaches.
All fisheries that implement bycatch reduction strategies are pushing to change how they impact the ocean’s ecosystem, but by aiming to reduce and not end bycatch, all responsible fisheries are accepting that the lives of animals such as the great whales are a price worth paying for their catch.
Bycatch may be accidental by nature, but its existence comes as no surprise to the industrial fishing sector. Bycatch is actually factored into budgets and resource allocation by large fishing companies. Its impact is not only known but measured and accounted for when it comes to profit, loss and deployment of fishing activities.
In short, the bycatch books are balanced so that the fishing industry can ensure its very existence doesn’t prevent profitability. They don’t stop bycatch, instead, they find a way to account for it and still get the fish they need.
You can’t argue with the business sense here, but from an ethical standpoint, it’s a distressing thought to imagine that the widespread slaughter of species like whales, dolphins, turtles and sharks is considered acceptable collateral damage.
What Does This Mean for Sustainable Bycatch Certifications?
Businesses and producers who make claims to be reducing bycatch and improving the sustainability of their practices are more likely to do so, that is not the question.
The question is how much they are reducing bycatch and principally, why do they continue to use practices that are known to result in the deaths of millions of animals that are fundamentally essential to the function of the ocean and, by extension, all life on our planet?
The simple truth of bycatch, bycatch reduction methods, and bycatch certification symbols is that, if you buy from large fisheries (who stock our supermarkets) you are buying fish caught through practices that result in bycatch and remain part of the problem.
Killing one whale is arguably better than killing ten, but is that one dead whale worth it?
It’s a harder question to answer than you might think.
Should We Accept Bycatch as Part of Modern Society?
The big argument for accepting bycatch as a necessary evil is that fisheries help sustain the world’s population of human beings and that without the masses of fish collected through activities like deep sea trawling, we’d be without a large amount of food.
But do we actually need seafood to survive?
Thought experiments, such as this source discussed by the BBC, suggest that it is possible for humanity to live without fishing, but it would also require we give up meat to allow more crops to be produced for our own consumption, and not to feed livestock.
The theory behind the idea is solid, and yes, a world could exist without the need for sea and therefore, bycatch. But this would be indeed theoretical and would be vastly different to the one we live in today.
Xplore Our Planet could not find a good enough resource to cite what would happen if we were to just stop industrial fishing and took that entire catch allocation out of the food from the world’s food supply chain, but considering over 2 trillion fish are caught for consumption each year, it’s not difficult to surmise that any immediate attempt to end fishing that results in bycatch would cause mass starvation.
On a global scale, at this point in our history, the elimination of bycatch is not possible without severe consequences for human life.
Will Bycatch Problems Ever Really Change?
New technologies presented to reduce bycatch are hopeful, and could one day see much higher rates of bycatch elimination, but as of now seem only capable of slowing down the rate of unwanted animal slaughter, not stopping it.
The unfortunate truth is that, when budgeting for profit and loss of bycatch, both the financial and food stock gains that are resultant of fishing techniques that create bycatch are too profitable within industrial-size fishing to ignore.
On this grim balance sheet of lives, the financial needs of the fishing industry, and the food requirements of humanity, are trumping those of the species drowning in nets.
The Best Way to Reduce Your Impact on Bycatch
On a global scale, the world is not ready to end bycatch. However, as individuals, we can take our own actions to slowly see a shift towards new ways of sourcing food. Plant-based diets are on the rise, and as such, investment in plant-based food production is also rising.
It’s not ready to support a world of plant eaters just yet, but as the BBC reports, that world isn’t an impossibility.
If you as a reader do not consume seafood, you do not support or contribute to bycatch. There is no financial incentive for businesses to trawl the ocean to feed you, and your demand for other sources of nutrition forces other industries to grow to meet your demand as a result.
Over time, if we all move away from fish and meat to plant-based diets, then bycatch is eliminated.
Key Takeaways to Know About Bycatch
Bycatch is the act of catching non-target species while fishing for a specific type of fish. E.g. catching dolphins when fishing for mackerel
Bycatch currently decimates many marine populations, from large marine mammals to many species of non-target fish
Bycatch impacts all levels of fisheries, from massive industrial trawling to local fishers
There are lots of processes in place to reduce bycatch but we cannot yet eliminate bycatch from our fishing practices
We have a long way to go before bycatch can be totally eliminated, but through reduced seafood intake and advancing technologies, we can reach a bycatch-less future.
The only way to stop bycatch is to act on a personal level and remove seafood from your diet.
