AR-News: Scientist warns of fishery toll from bycatches, ghost fisheries

[jim robertson]

Scientist warns of fishery toll from bycatches, ghost fisheries

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Unintended catches of marine life in 
commercial and recreational fisheries are taking a heavy toll, delegates to 
the World Fisheries Congress have been told.

The carnage extends to turtles, dolphins and birds caught in nets and on 
fish hooks, deep-dwelling fish that are suddenly raised to the surface by 
anglers and the uncounted toll of creatures snared by lost or abandoned 
fishing gear, said Amy Poon of the University of British Columbia Fisheries 
Center.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates a quarter of the world's annual catch is 
wasted, the equivalent of 44 billion pounds of fish annually, including 10 
to 20 million juvenile red snapper caught annually by shrimp trawlers in the 
Gulf of Mexico.

Poon is working on a project to estimate worldwide losses of crabs and 
lobsters to ghost traps.

According to her initial research, reported Monday at the gathering in 
Vancouver, estimates of ghost fishery losses as a percentage of the reported 
catch range from 37 percent in Florida's blue crab fishery to less than 1 
percent in Washington state's Dungeness crab fishery.

She estimated 10,000 lobster traps, or 10 percent of the total, are lost 
annually off New England alone.

Laws in some jurisdictions require that traps contain biodegradable parts 
which corrode and release the crustaceans, but the process can take two 
months during which predators make their way into the traps to eat the last 
victim and then become victims themselves, Poon said.

Without biodegradable parts, the traps can continue to kill for many years 
before they disintegrate, and those losses are not considered by fisheries 
managers in setting annual catch limits, she added.




"One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or 
torture an animal and get away with it" —  Margaret Mead.

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