Discarded fish in European waters: general patterns and contrasts

Abstract

To reduce the practice of discarding commercially fished organisms, several measures such as a discard ban and extra allowances on top of landings quotas (“catch quota”) have been proposed by the European Commission. However, for their development and successful implementation, an understanding of discard patterns on a European scale is needed. In this study, we present an inter-national synthesis of discard data collected on board commercial, towed-gear equipped vessels operating under six different national flags spanning from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Seas mainly between 2003 and 2008. We considered discarded species of commercial value such as Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), European hake (Merluccius merluccius), and European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa). Comparisons of discard per unit effort rates expressed as numbers per hour of fishing revealed that in the Mediterranean Sea minimum size-regulated species such as hake are generally discarded in much lower numbers than elsewhere. For most species examined, variability in discard rates across regions was greater than across fisheries, suggesting that a region-by-region approach to discard reduction would be more relevant. The high uncertainty in discard rate estimates suggests that current sampling regimes should be either expanded or complemented by other data sources, if they are to be used for setting catch quotas.

Fishing suitability maps: helping fishermen reduce discards

“…This program of onboard observers is based on stratified random sampling (see Bellido and Pérez 2007 for details) that considers the "Fishery Unit" (homogeneous fishing fleet, sharing the same fishing gear, target species, and fishing area during a specific period of time) as the stratum. The sampling protocol of this program is similar to that of other European observer programs operating under the European Data Collection Regulation (Madsen et al 2013;Uhlmann et al 2014).…”

Mixed fisheries management: Is the ban on discarding likely to promote more selective and fuel efficient fishing in the Dutch flatfish fishery?

“…Among the concerns about sustainable exploitation is the discarding of part of the catch (Alverson et al, 1994;Jennings and Kaiser, 1998;Uhlmann et al, 2013b). Because trawl fisheries are generally not fully selective for the marketable fish species and fish size categories, they can catch a large proportion of undersized target species, non-target species, over-quota catches, and lower valued fish of quota species.…”

The Common Fisheries Policy: A Difficult Compromise Between Relative Stability and the Discard Ban

“…European Commission (2011) Common Fisheries Policy Impact Assessment-EU Discards Annex. See also: Uhlmann et al (2013). 62 We take as a reference, although simplifying some reasons and grouping them into two categories, the work of Lucas (1997). gear (a quota may be given for the capture of a particular species by a particular type of gear), prohibited fishing ground (closed for the capture of one species but open for others), prohibited species (no quota for the particular operator), and quotas reached (often the reason for high grading).…”