MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION - Annual Report for 1995 



Workshop participants included a large number of 

 U.S. commercial fishermen as well as gear manufac- 

 turers, scientists, and resource managers from nine 

 countries. Meeting presentations and exhibits provid- 

 ed a valuable opportunity for U.S. fishermen to learn 

 first hand about new fishing gear designs, fishing 

 practices, and fishery management approaches being 

 developed and applied to reduce or avoid bycatch. To 

 make the information presented broadly available to 

 fishermen and others, the meeting papers will be 

 published in a proceedings volume in spring 1996. 



The paper presented on behalf of the Marine 

 Mammal Commission addressed ghostfishing impacts, 

 particularly on commercial fishery resources, and 

 possible solutions. It noted that many of the species 

 taken as bycatch were also caught in derelict gear, and 

 that the only difference between the two issues was 

 that one involved active gear and the other derelict 

 gear. It therefore urged that the two problems be 

 considered jointly as related aspects of the same 

 fundamental concern — preventing unwanted mortality 

 of marine life in fishing gear. 



The paper reviewed results of ghostfishing studies, 

 such as those mentioned above, and noted that to date 

 no assessments of ghostfishing have considered 

 cumulative impacts from losses by all types of lost 

 gear. For example, lobsters in New England are 

 prone to entanglement in lost gillnets, but estimates of 

 ghostfishing losses for lobsters have considered only 

 those killed in lost lobster traps. As a result, many, 

 if not most, quantitative estimates of ghostfishing 

 could significantly underestimate losses. It also noted 

 that almost no long-term studies had been done on 

 escape panels in traps to verify the assumption they 

 work effectively and pose no entrapment hazards. 

 With some traps lasting a decade or longer and with 

 trap losses in some fisheries reaching 30 percent or 

 more of the traps in use each year, even very low 

 ghostfishing rates may be significant. 



To reduce ghostfishing and entanglement hazards, 

 the paper recommended additional efforts to encour- 

 age proper disposal of old fishing gear and to study 

 and improve gear design features, such as escape 

 panels. Concerning the former point, it suggested the 

 most urgent need was to develop convenient port 

 reception facilities to recycle and dispose of old 



fishing gear and other ship-generated garbage. It 

 noted that efforts to develop such facilities were being 

 taken by the Marine Entanglement Research Program 

 (see below), and it urged fishermen to work with port 

 operators and government officials to demand their 

 development. Regarding gear design, the paper 

 recommended efforts to develop degradable floats or 

 float release mechanisms that would reduce the time 

 lost nets maintain vertical profiles that increase 

 ghostfishing. It also recommended examining the 

 possible use of degradable netting in some situations. 



The paper also recommended further work in four 

 other areas that have received little attention to date. 

 First, it suggested exploring efforts to retrieve lost 

 gear (such as the pilot gillnet retrieval project dis- 

 cussed above) encouraging greater efforts to retain 

 lost gear caught incidentally during fishing operations, 

 and recording the location where gear is lost to 

 facilitate later retrieval. Second, it recommended 

 steps to modify fishing practices, such as avoiding 

 known hazard areas where the risk of bottom snags or 

 vessel collisions are great. The paper noted that some 

 fishermen may use their older, less valuable gear and 

 risk losing it in order to fish in hazardous areas where 

 catch rates may be higher. It was urged that such 

 practices be eliminated. 



Third, the paper recommended developing ap- 

 proaches to enhance the relocation of lost gear or to 

 prevent its loss in the first place. Possible examples 

 include attaching sonic devices or radar reflectors to 

 submerged gear or using automatic float-release 

 mechanisms to keep floats and other gear markers 

 underwater where passing vessels and storms would 

 be less likely to damage or carry off gear. And 

 fourth, it recommended further research to assess the 

 rates, location, and primary causes of gear loss, the 

 hazard life and catch rates of different types of lost 

 gear, and total ghostfishing losses for selected species, 

 such as crabs and lobster, by all types of lost gear. 



The Marine Entanglement 

 Research Program 



The National Marine Fisheries Service has carried 

 out a program to study and mitigate marine debris 



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