Sea you later

Bycatch is the ugliest thing you never see in the fish market

Posted by Erik Hoffner (Guest Contributor) at 2:10 PM on 05 Dec 2007

Read more about: oceans | fishing | wildlife | waste

Unwanted fish tossed back into the ocean.

Photo: Brian Skerry.

Commercial fishing creates a mind-boggling amount of waste, at least 7.3 million tons (PDF) annually of discarded fish ("bycatch") which are either unwanted, illegal to keep, or mangled in the gear. And this number from 2004 is a conservative estimate, not fully accounting for several major fishing countries.

Marine photographer Brian Skerry has some very intense imagery that illustrates this phenomenon, and he's provided a couple here for your interest (more are at his site: look under portfolios for global fisheries). The first one shows discarded fish raining into the depths from a small vessel: the second, below the fold, shows three shrimp caught in an hour of towing a net in tropical waters: what's under the shrimp is the incredible pile of unwanted critters which died for that meager handful.

The good news would seem to be that bycatch rates are falling -- except that it's happening in concert with decreases in landings of "desired" fish, too, so the overall picture of oceanic fish stocks is bleak. Catches have been falling since the 1980s, and will continue without creation of fishing-free zones in the oceans and major cutbacks in harvest rates (via strong reductions of subsidies, likely).

The bycatch haul for just a handful of shrimp.

Photo: Brian Skerry.

There is hope for cutting back on bycatch with the help of simple improvements to fishing gear, which are being catalyzed in part by WWF's SmartGear competition, an annual contest to encourage innovations that keep sea turtles, birds, marine mammals, cetaceans, and nontarget fish species out of fishing gear such as longlines and nets.

Still, I'd rather see overall harvest rates of targeted species decline for a while by just reducing overall fishing pressure. We're loving seafood -- and the seas -- to death.

Thanks to Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us Project for helping with this post. Check out her excellent blog about marine science and "shifting baselines" here.)

For story: Sea you later
15 Comments | Post a Comment

Selective gear

The U.S. has come a long way in reducing by-catch, and is now working on measured to reduce sea bird by-catch as well (long-lines can "catch" seagulls and other species). Some folks up in Rhode Island (URI?) just designed nets that would be selective for cod or fluke. Trawling and long-lining are the worst offenders but it even happens in the "clean" hook and line business.

Part of the problem is the NMFS regulations themselves, which require all by-catch to be thrown overboard is not caught under a permit, allocated days at sea, or other circumstances. The problem is that most of the by-catch could be sold and eaten, but the boat would be busted if it brought those fish (especially undersized) into port.

Know what happens when you throw a partly stunned fish overboard? It is never good, and mortality is well over 90 percent.

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 3:23 PM on 05 Dec 2007

Scuttle the fleet....

Current world fishing practices are based upon the concept that some fish are worth keeping while throwing all the other fish away. They get away with this because diesel provides a huge energy subsidy to fishing boats. The boat's engines burn far more calories in diesel than the fish that are kept.

All fising vessels need to be limited to sail power only and natural fiber gear. Hemp nets, glass floats, sail and oar never had a chance of depleting the entire ocean of fish. This is only possible with diesel engines, steel hulls and nylon gear.

Eliminate the energy advantage and the fisherman go back to keeping as much of the catch as possible for food, bait or fertilizer. In San Francisco we call the bycatch cioppino, in France I believe it's referred to as bouillabaisse. In New Orleans its Gumbo.

The fishing fleet needs to convert back to zero carbon operations and the fish will return.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 3:14 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Bycatch and discarding are criminal

Here is a quote that jsut about sums it up for me -

"Imagine what people would say if a band of hunters strung a mile of net between two immense all-terrain vehicles and dragged it at speed across the plains of Africa. This fantastical assemblage, like something from a Mad Max movie, would scoop up everything in its way: predators such as lions and cheetahs, lumbering endangered hebivores, such as rhinos and elephants, herds of impala and wildebeast, family groups of warthog and wild dog. Pregnant females would be swept up and carried along, with only the smallest juveniles able to wriggle through the mesh.......There are no markets for about a third of the animals they have caught because they don't taste too good, or because they are too small or too squashed. This pile of corpses is dumped on the plain to be consumed by carrion."

http://www.blueplanetsociety.org

by Blueplanet at 4:14 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Good comment Pangolin

Sometimes things work out ... we have a bay shrimp boat that drags for shrimp down here, nice old man that runs an old clunker himself. He always calls the local Sea Life Center when he catches unusual stuff like octopus, sea dragons, electric eels, and other strangers. He sells every bit of the stuff, gives away the exotic critters to Sea Life, and of course throws back the sports fish such as redfish, sea trout, flounder, and snook. He kills the green crabs, an invasive species. His definition of "bycatch" is a little sea grass, seaweed, and sandy mud.

If more people practiced such a holistic kind of fishing, taking regard for every critter, the world would be a better place ...

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 8:24 AM on 06 Dec 2007

That's a great quote, Blueplanet

My concern with the Sustainable Seafood lists is that whether or not you are eating a "sustainable" seafood item or not, bycatch is almost always still a factor. Maybe some species are still plentiful, but what about the species that are caught and disgarded in the process? Which is why I don't eat any seafood and encouarage others concerned about oceans not to either. Plenty of other non-animal sources of protein and omega 3 fatty acids are readily available and are healthier since they don't have mercury, pcbs and other pollutants.

by amc89 at 9:03 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Commercial fishing is simply ecocide...

plain and simple. Unless you're fishing with a rod and reel for a single fish at a time you're probably inflicting grave damage on the marine ecosystem. It's not that difficult. The hard part is that this means eating zero or very little seafood, which is the only solution.

I teach environmental economics and blog at www.voicesofreason.info.

by Jason D Scorse at 9:20 AM on 06 Dec 2007

sea bass back on the sustainable list?

AMC: I saw chilean sea bass in the Whole Foods fish case last week, alongside the tuna and other things we really shouldn't be eating, and I was stunned. They're marketing it again because it's been certified 'sustainably harvested' by the Marine Stewardship Council. Which I'm very skeptical of. The worker I queried about it threw up his hands & said no matter how it's certified, he felt that they shouldn't be selling it at all, nor probably the tuna or swordfish, etc.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

by Erik Hoffner at 9:23 AM on 06 Dec 2007
[ Parent ]

What about tilapia and catfish?

That's most of the fish we eat, and my understanding is that they are grown inland in farms, with (fingers crossed) very little environmental damage, and I assume none to the sea.

by Jon Rynn at 9:27 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Well, just don't eat!

The fish are gone! The CAFOs are no good! The vegetables are tainted with E. coli! The fruit is dipped in poison! And don't joke with me about this "organic and sustainable" crap either! Just stop eating and that will take care of your problems...

Such apocalyptic thinking is fairly common in these parts, don't you recon?

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 9:38 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Just don't eat?

Well I dunno, Sam. Like you (I think), I'll keep eating fish/seafood, but be careful to look for outlets like your friend the conscientious shrimper. No tuna or the like, though yellowfin tuna is about the best choice if one must.

Jon's tilapia and catfish are a great option: they're both vegetarians, I believe, without impacts on oceanic systems (I think). But you may want to ask about antibiotics and the like, Jon. Lots of tilapia in markets comes from countries where chemical amendment is liberal.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

by Erik Hoffner at 10:10 AM on 06 Dec 2007

Sustainable seafood

I agree with you AMC, and I have given up eating seafood entirely as well. Until laws are passed that ensures that only the target species are caught, with no colateral damage, no bycatch and no discards, I am not convinced that any commercial fishing of wild species can be sustainable, whether MSC certified or not.
This will of course increase the price of seafood dramatically, but no wild animal should be cheap and if we are prepared to do it for organic vegetables then we should do it for fish.

by Blueplanet at 11:15 AM on 06 Dec 2007
[ Parent ]

cioppino and bycatch

It is true that Mediterranean fishermen, including those that migrated to San Francisco, have been remarkably resourceful in putting as much as possible of what they catch to culinary use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cioppino

(It is a mystery to me why it ever struck anyone that serving shellfish in the shell might be a good idea. Plunging into bowls of thick soup or pasta, or into casseroles, and plucking out the hot and gooey contents, and wrestling with them then, with or without fancy-schmancy extra utensils, just for the sake of a single bite, is supposed to be fun??)

But it should be observed that "bycatch" means different things, depending on the fishing method. The huge, industrial factory ships, when they trawl, have a significantly different effect than these relatively small shrimp boats. And laying out long lines also has its own peculiar effects. And it is certainly not true that all bycatch can be cooked and eaten.

Organizations promoting conservation of wildlife tend to emphasize the deaths of charismatic air-breathing vertebrates when they are caught as bycatch -- e.g. cetaceans, pinnipeds, sea turtles, pelagic birds. And that is well-done. But it is also good to bring attention to the huge number of fish that are lost in these super-efficient and ill-regulated fishing operations, as this post does. In the two photographs here, we notice a number of sharks tossed overboard in the first, and, in the second, one shark on the left, as well as a number of bony fishes, especially porcupinefish. My old Golden Guide to Fishes says of porcupinefishes and their close relatives the burrfishes that they are "of no commercial value, but interesting because of their form." (And their allies the pufferfishes often are extremely toxic, most famously the kind eaten with suicide-skirting relish by the Japanese.) So it seems unlikely that even the most determined bouillabaisse-loving chef could do much with this catch.

Collecting the fins of the sharks, of course, is another matter entirely -- and not at all to be encouraged.

By the way, it might be of interest to note that the porcupinefish are more closely related to us than they are to the sharks. They are actinopterygians, the major taxon in the Osteichthyes, the "bony fishes," and the most diverse of all vertebrate taxa; and we, like all tetrapods, are direct descendants of sarcopterygians, such as the coelacanth, the other big taxon in Osteichthyes. Sharks and rays, by contrast, are in Chondrichthyes, the "cartilaginous fishes."

Of course, whether the degree of our natural affinity with another sentient creature should influence how much justice, compassion, etc., we owe to that creature, is a matter of ethical controversy.

I for one think these are not unimportant matters, though certainly they are complex. Therefore, wearing my environmentalist conservationist hat, I agree that cultivation of such vegetarian fishes as catfish and tilapia should be encouraged. But as a promoter of animal rights, I am a good bit less enthusiastic.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:04 PM on 06 Dec 2007

Wrong approach to fishery management

Did any of you happen to catch the piece by John Tierney at the NYT? He was reporting on a study in Science by some Australians which showed how a fishery aimed at best profits, instead of fishing to the 'sustainable limit', increases stock sizes and thus leaves more diverse and resilient ecosystems.

by NSaggie at 10:28 AM on 07 Dec 2007

profits

NSaggie: yes, BBC covered it too, here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7127761.stm

Most interesting part for me is late in the piece with a guy quoted as saying "Low effort and high revenues mean that a small group of people could become very rich."

Which would require stringent licensing a la the EU, sounds like, and heavy competition for those licenses, ratcheting up the cost of doing business, higher prices paid for those fish, the desire to cut corners in fishing practices, piracy by non-licensees...the ideas of sustainable fisheries and the profit motive just don't quite jive in my view.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

by Erik Hoffner at 6:56 AM on 08 Dec 2007
[ Parent ]

failure to jive

Right, Erik. And the recent rancor stirred up amongst English and Scottish fishers over having to throw back over-quota catches of cod does not encourage confidence that government regulations are either well-designed or effective:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7103363.stm

Of course it is worth noticing, first, that regulations must be at least somewhat effective, if in fact the North Sea cod have been increasing, and that is thanks to the clumsy quota system regulating how many cod may be brought to port; and secondly, that the fishers complaining about the "immorality" of having to throw back so many fish were in fact throwing back bycatch, because they were after prawns.

And thirdly, note that valiant Greenpeace spokesman at the end, declaring that lots of fisheries everywhere ought to be closed, for many years! Bravo!, and good luck!

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:56 AM on 08 Dec 2007

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