Effects of fishery bycatch-mitigation measures on vulnerable marine fauna and target catch

Huang, Cheng; Rice, Jake; Richter, Andries; Zhou, Kaiwen; Wang, Yi; Wei, Chentao; Pagani-Núñez, Emilio; Maleko, Philipp N.; Zhang, Xiong; Lee, Tien Ming; Liu, Yang

doi:10.1038/s41893-024-01422-7

Effects of fishery bycatch-mitigation measures on vulnerable marine fauna and target catch

Huang, Cheng; Rice, Jake; Richter, Andries; Zhou, Kaiwen; Wang, Yi; Wei, Chentao; Pagani-Núñez, Emilio; Maleko, Philipp N.; Zhang, Xiong; Lee, Tien Ming; Liu, Yang

Authors

Cheng Huang

Jake Rice

Andries Richter

Kaiwen Zhou

Yi Wang

Chentao Wei

Dr Emilio Pagani-Nunez E.Pagani-Nunez@napier.ac.uk
Lecturer

Philipp N. Maleko

Xiong Zhang

Tien Ming Lee

Yang Liu

Abstract

Reducing fisheries bycatches of vulnerable species is critical to marine biodiversity conservation and sustainable fisheries development. Although various preventive technical measures have been implemented, their overall effects are poorly understood. Here, we used a meta-analysis approach to quantify the effects of 42 technical measures on the target catch and the bycatch of seabirds, elasmobranchs, marine mammals and sea turtles. We showed that these measures generally reduced the bycatch while having no statistically significant effect on the target catch. Sensory-based measures generally outperformed physical-based ones in reducing the bycatch. Mitigation measures that worked well for several fishing gears or taxa, although useful, were very rare. Most of the adoptions by regional fisheries management organizations (59%) were supported by our findings, although many others are yet to be robustly evaluated. Our study encourages the innovation and adoption of technical measures and provides crucial insights for policy-making and further research in sustainable bycatch management.

Citation

Huang, C., Rice, J., Richter, A., Zhou, K., Wang, Y., Wei, C., Pagani-Núñez, E., Maleko, P. N., Zhang, X., Lee, T. M., & Liu, Y. (2024). Effects of fishery bycatch-mitigation measures on vulnerable marine fauna and target catch. Nature Sustainability, 7, 1535–1545. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01422-7

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Aug 2, 2024
Online Publication Date	Sep 4, 2024
Publication Date	2024-11
Deposit Date	Sep 5, 2024
Publicly Available Date	Mar 5, 2025
Electronic ISSN	2398-9629
Publisher	Nature Research
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	7
Pages	1535–1545
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01422-7