Meateater- Trawl Bycatch

[Yoteassasin]

So everyone is on board the word is PELAGIC

 

[Mangata]

So everyone is on board the word is PELAGIC

What are pelagic fish?

Pelagic fish inhabit the water column, not near the bottom or the shore, of coasts, open oceans, and lakes. Pelagic fish can be categorized as coastal and oceanic fish, based on the depth of the water they inhabit. Coastal pelagic fish inhabit sunlit waters up to 200 meters deep, typically...

oceanservice.noaa.gov

 

[Flyjunky]

I have heard commercials guys talk about what they kill and throw back. The problem is well known and has been fir years and having heard the admissions from the horses mouth, I rather dismiss those who claim different as untrustworthy.

My answer is don't let anything get through back. If it crosses the gunwales it must be kept. Give a quote by pounds for each species of bycatch and once a boat or captain reaches the limit there season is done. Captain cannot hop to a different boat, boat cannot swap captains. Crew can go work for someone else though.

I see no value in throwing a dead shaker king back, I do see value in turning it into something if dead anyway, even if only canned fish or fertilizer.

Agree but the quota can’t be pounds. It has to be number of fish, regardless of size. If you go by pounds and the trawlers get into a bunch of smaller fish that is A LOT of fish gone…entire river systems and age class of fish disappear.

 

[WalterH]

The average size of halibut bycaught in the trawl fisheries is about 4lbs. At 1.8 million pounds of discarded halibut this year already, that is close to half a million individual fish. That is a huge loss to current biomass and future biomass as well as those fish aren't spawners and haven't had the change to put anything back into the ecosystem.

Another important thing to know about trawl bycatch is how these numbers are tallied. The poundage you see is all of the dead halibut, and 50% of what has been "deck sorted." That is fish that have been compacted into the massive trawl nets with millions of pounds of other fish and drug around behind the boat for hours, to be dumped on the deck and kicked back into the water. The metric that applies says that 50% of these deck sorted fish survive, so they don't go against the quota or get tallied as bycatch.

I think few of these deck sorted fish survive. Many of the ones that might have a little life left in them after they go back in the water are killed by predators that have learned to bird dog the boats and eat at the buffet of dead and dying fish left in their wake.

There is also the problem of underreporting and undocumented bycatch. How big is that problem?

So, when we see 1.8 million pounds of halibut, that could be half, or less of the total impact/loss.

 

[LostArra]

What's sad to me is all the rules and regs that the guy casting from shore has to follow and even then, he's most likely going to get ticketed for something.

BC Fishing rules and regs are absolutely insane to follow, and Alaska isn't far behind. Why? We know why.

This is so true in Alaska. I've seen first timers at the dock who bring in a mixed bag of salmon and accidently mistake an undersize king. You would think they stole the Crown Jewels while the commercial guys are shoveling piles of the same fish off their deck.