What kind of technical method do you use to avoid unwanted catches ?
Disclaimer : The views expressed in this report are those of the stakeholders that were interviewed and in no way represent the views of the research institutes, the national authorities or the European Commission.
Commonalities
Gear based technical changes have been deployed in all the areas as a way of mitigating the impacts of the LO. As would be expected, these vary between the fisheries, but again there are some common approaches:
Increases in mesh size in the cod end or across the net are utilised in all the areas. These entail using larger mesh sizes than required by law. Analogously, some Azores fishermen also use larger, more selective hooks than legally required. This is a key commonality, almost everywhere fishermen are voluntarily using more selective gear than required by law!
Square mesh panels were identified in both the Irish and Danish examples as useful tools for eliminating unwanted catches, presumably particularly for undersized target species.
Changing gear/metier was mentioned for Irish Nephrops trawlers – using quad instead of twin rigs. Azores fishermen mentioned switching from long line to hand line, and switching to a different hook design/shape.
Specifics – that could be applied elsewhere
The use of quad rig Nephrops trawls was mentioned in the Irish case. This type of gear is not generally allowed outside Ireland.
The Balearics case identified on-board handling systems as important for separating species and controlling discards, and particularly for the survival of the fish ultimately discarded.
Greek fishers think that they have little discards and on board handling will not be increased if they have to keep discards. The number of crew on Greek boats is important so working time will not increase. Deep trawlers have enough space to store discards if necessary.
French fishers consider that sorting out discards by species will require more people on board and they cannot afford this extra cost. Larger trawlers may have enough space to store discards. This is not possible for small coastal deep trawlers (12 – 14 meters) because some of them don’t have storage room and fish has to be kept on the deck. Current regulation do not allow fishers to keep human consumption fish and discards in the same place.
By clicking on the orange bullet you will get Fishermen interviews. Material is based on WP4.1 Delivrable
The fisherman story
Citation :
Fiche What kind of technical method do you use to avoid unwanted catches ?, Author(s) : Dave Reid
DiscardLess Atlas [on line]. 2017. Reid et al., 2017. DiscardLess Deliverable D4.1: Initial avoidance manuals by case study including tactical, strategic and gear based approaches agreed by scientists and fishers.
http://www.discardless.eu/fishermen_story
