TL: FISH OVERBOARD - A SYMPTOM!
SO: Jens Ole Hoejmann, Greenpeace (GP)
DT: not dated
Keywords: greenpeace factsheets oceans fisheries fish
waste gp atlantic overfishing arctic scandinavia europe /


Discards can be defined as all fish and other species caught in
the fishing gear and brought on board but which is not kept;
that is, everything which is thrown back over the side of the
fishing vessel. Discards occur for several reasons and in a
variety of forms. They are, however, an indication of a poorly
managed fishery.

During the past few decades, fishing effort for several species
in the northeast Atlantic Ocean region and in the Barents Sea
has become so large that many of the stocks have been
overfished. There simply wasn't enough fish in the sea to be
able to support the amount of fishing that occurred for cod,
haddock, herring and capelin.

The stocks must be allowed to recover in order to ensure their
future survival. This means not only that fishing effort overall
must be sensibly regulated, following rigorous scientific
assessment based on sound data, but that young year classes must
be protected until they mature and are able to spawn. There is
no other way to allow for the possibility of future fisheries.

Fisheries management authorities, who regulate the conduct of
the fishery and determine the size of the total allowable catch
(TAC) have been obliged to introduce rules in an attempt to
limit the catch of juveniles. One common method of discouraging
the catching of under-sized fish is to establish a minimum
landing size for individual fish, to effectively forbid the
fishermen from landing and selling small fish.  Fishermen are
thus obliged to throw the unwanted catch overboard. Since these
fish are not landed or counted, the result is that they do not
figure in the assessment of the managers regarding the level of
fishing that is taking place.

Many fisheries also have high catch of other species, for which
there is no market, or of species for which the quota has
already been caught. Both of these situations result in fish
being discarded.

Another form of discarding occurs when fishermen throw fish
overboard which are above the minimum size, but do not give the
highest price. If the catch of a given species is limited to a
specific amount, or quota, it is in the fishermen's short term
interest to land and sell only those fish which command the
highest price, and to throw back into the sea those for which
they would receive less money.

All of these measures are designed to preserve the stocks of
fish, and also the future fishery- rules about minimum landing
size, the the use of quotas to control catch of certain species,
and the closure of a fishery. The paradoxical result is,
however, that fishermen today carry out an extensive sorting of
the catch on board in order to take out the forbidden fish which
may not be landed. Attempts to introduce fishery restrictions,
with the aim of conserving the stocks, often seem to have worked
against that aim. Lower quotas and minimum sizes have often
resulted in greater fish mortality, since fishers feel obliged
to select for the larger and more valuable fish given the fierce
competition for allowable catches in the quota system. Many
fisheries that today fulfill the "correct" TAC, have in reality
fished considerably more than the amount of the target species
officially registered, not to mention the non-target species
which have beendiscarded. A number of research projects have
estimated the extent to which discards occur.

In the fishery for Norwegian lobster off the north-east coast of
England, 15 - 82% of the catch is not of the required size, and
is therefore thrown out. Greenland's shrimp fishery is in a
similar situation. Here it has been calculated that 40 - 60% of
the catch is discarded. If we look at the cod fishery in the
Baltic Sea, there is again a high bycatch of undersized fish.
The size of the bycatch varies considerably from trip to trip,
but often the catch consists of around 50% undersized fish,
which are, once again, thrown out.

In the Barents Sea, juvenile fish in the catch is also a
problem. Here, according to Norwegian law, it is illegal to
throw fish back. The intent of this regulation is to allow
management authorities to more closely estimate actual fishing
mortality. Despite this provision in Norwegian fisheries law, it
has been calculated that around 50% of fish taken are caught
before they even reach the minimum legal size. Trawling in areas
where a large proportion of the population consists of juveniles
is a major problem affecting stock levels.  Discarding fish
continues to be a problem for authorities charged with
enforcement, and the actual level of impact of the fisheries is
extremely difficult to assess as a result.

The inevitable conclusion of these research results must be that
the present fishing methods, and current management tools used
to conserve the stocks, result in catches far greater than is
recorded in official statistics. Not only are more fish removed
from the sea than the quota permits, but, again, this extra
mortality is not included in the calculations of the scientists
when they estimate how much can be caught the following year.
This is a dangerous situation, which can lead to the collapse of
the stocks, in spite of the opposite intentions of the
regulations. This in fact has been the case for important
commercially fished stocks in the Barents Sea, such as cod and
haddock.

ARE DISCARDS WASTE?

Actually many believe the fish that are thrown back into the sea
just swim away, but it has been shown that only a very small
percentage survive.

On shallow fishing grounds, the fish have the greatest chance of
survival, for they will have experienced a smaller change in
pressure when being hauled aboard. However, when they are thrown
back they are away from their natural territory, and are a quick
and easy prey for predators such as seabirds. In deeper fishing
grounds, the fish have already been damaged by having been
compressed in the trawl, hauled up to the surface with the
resulting extreme change in pressure, and being handled on deck
and thrown back into the sea. Their protective mucous layer and
scales are damaged and they have often undergone internal damage
to their organs, so they have a very small chance of survival.
In fact, many of the fish are already dead when they arrive on
the deck. Even some of the juvenile fish which escape through
the meshes of the trawl may be damaged and later die.

WHAT ALTERNATIVES ARE THERE?

Discards are an unacceptable situation in fisheries management.
There is research underway in attempts to solve this problem,
but the initiatives currently being taken by the authorities are
not sufficient. Within the EC, there is research being conducted
to allow setting prices for those fish that are normally thrown
back. But the price would have to be extremely high, in order
for fishermen to choose to bring these fish to land. While a
general picture is obtained of what fish are being caught and
would normally have been thrown overboard, in practice this does
not solve the problem, for the fish are still caught and die.
The unrecorded catch will still occur. In addition, the
fisheries industry will then require even greater subsidies than
it currently enjoys as profits decline and operating costs rise.
The subsidies then may serve to keep unprofitable operations
going amidst declining fish stocks, furthering over-fishing.

The other possibility is to forbid discards, as in Norway's
situation, and at the same time place fishery observers on board
to record the catch. This solution does not solve the problem of
unwanted catch, but does ensure that the catch is included in
the TAC, and that the fisheries bureaucracy is expanded.

The only practical way is to work towards eliminating the
catches which result in discards. This can only come about by
the development of new, more selective fisheries technology and
methods of fishing in addition to revising the current
unworkable quota systems. Today it is necessary to recognise
that the large factory trawlers operating in the Barents sea are
obsolete in relation to the resource base. Alternative
technologies do exist and must be put in place of those
techniques which have proven to be destructive to fish stocks.
Some of these have been shown to yield larger fish, higher
quality and greater overall value for the fisheries. Today,
modern high technology using automated longlines can be used in
ocean areas where bycatch of juveniles has been high. Modern
line fisheries can replace the ageing trawl fishery, and at the
same time preserve a fishery that is of high quality, which
protects juveniles and is profitable.

In fisheries where only trawl technology is applicable, eg;
shrimp and redfish, new and more selective trawlers must be
introduced.

Greenpeace therefore concludes that, only the introduction of
new selective catch technology can help solve the problem of
indiscriminate and wasteful fishing, when coupled with rational
control of fishing effort and capacity.  In this way we may
assure a future for ecologically sound fisheries.