Limit bycatch

Turtle caught in net

What’s the issue?

The scale and effectiveness of modern fishing gear pose an unintended risk to ocean wildlife. Unfortunately, other animals — not targeted by fishermen — are caught and killed by their lines or nets. This bycatch is often discarded if fishermen can’t sell it or its capture is prohibited by regulations.

Understanding the issue

  • Certain types of fishing gear, like bottom trawls, longlines and gillnets, tend to catch more non-targeted species. For example:

  • Bottom trawls drag nets across the seafloor, catching everything in their paths. Every year, over 4 million tons of bycatch are caught in bottom trawls. 

  • Pile of fishing gear

    Ghost gear is lost fishing gear that floats in the sea or sits on the seafloor — and can also entangle animals.

  • Longlines can extend for 50 miles or more and have thousands of baited hooks. When cast out and left to "soak," longlines and gillnets attract anything that swims by, from sharks to sea turtles.

Sustainable solutions

Fishermen truly don't want to haul in bycatch — it wastes their time and damages their gear. If affordable, proven solutions are available, fishermen will often use them.

In recent decades, modifications to fishing gear and stronger industry regulations have reduced the amount of bycatch caught each year in some fisheries. Often these solutions are cost-effective and provide a win-win for ocean wildlife and fishermen.

  • Pole-and-lines catching fish with single line hook and bait

    Using pole and line

    Some fisheries simply use poles and lines to catch fish, greatly reducing the risk of bycatch. With this fishing technique, fishermen catch one fish at a time and can more easily release any unwanted catch from their hooks. Many canned and fresh fish are now labeled as pole and line caught. Learn more about different fishing and farming methods.

  • A sooty shearwater flying low over the surface of Monterey Bay with others flying in the background

    Streamers can save seabirds

    Sea birds are attracted to the easy meal of baitfish put on longline hooks by fishermen. The birds grab the fish at the surface, get snared on the hook and are dragged underwater and drown. Adding streamers — brightly colored ribbons that flap — to longlines deters seabirds and reduces their rate of entanglement. In the 1990s, seabirds entanglement was a major problem for the Alaskan groundfish longline fisheries. In 2002, streamer lines became required gear. Since then, the number of albatross deaths has decreased by 89 percent and other seabird deaths have declined by 77 percent.

  • Loggerhead turtle

    Turtle Exclusion Devices

    Sea turtles — nearly all of which are classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — are commonly caught in gillnets, trawls and longlines. In the southeast U.S. and Gulf of Mexico, sea turtles are often caught in the nets of shrimp trawlers.

    Facing a possible closure of the fishery, the industry worked with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop Turtle Exclusion Devices (TED). These devices are fitted to the trawl nets and if a turtle is caught in the net, the device opens, allowing the turtle to escape the net.

    While TEDs are now required by law for shrimp trawlers in the U.S. and Mexico, many fisheries around the world lack similar regulations. Many small-scale fisheries also have a significant bycatch impact, but these fisheries are harder to monitor and regulate.

  • Wild Pacific bluefin tuna swimming in the ocean

     

    What Seafood Watch is doing

    Bycatch is one of the main criteria that Seafood Watch assesses for every fishery. To achieve Seafood Watch’s top ratings for environmentally responsible seafood, a fishery must meet the strict limits of allowable bycatch.

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