The National Bycatch Reduction Strategy, developed in collaboration with partners, includes objectives and actions that build on past successes and guide NOAA Fisheries’ efforts to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality.
The United States is a global leader in sustainable fisheries management and protected species conservation. NOAA Fisheries’ core mission is to promote productive and sustainable fisheries and conserve and recover protected species—all backed by sound science and an ecosystem-based approach to management. NOAA Fisheries recognizes that some level of bycatch is inherent in fishing operations. With that acknowledgment, the goal of the 2016 National Bycatch Reduction Strategy is to guide and coordinate NOAA Fisheries’ efforts to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality in support of sustainably managing fisheries and recovering and conserving protected species. This 2016 Strategy builds on past and ongoing efforts to reduce bycatch.
Implementation of this Strategy will occur at the regional, national, and international levels. NOAA Fisheries headquarters’ offices, regional offices, and science centers, in coordination with our partners and stakeholders, will develop implementation plans in 2017.
NOAA Fisheries manages bycatch and its impacts through several authorities, including the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and other domestic laws and international agreements. Each of these authorities defines bycatch differently. For the purposes of this Strategy, bycatch means discarded catch of marine species and unobserved mortality due to a direct encounter with fishing vessels and gear. While this document refers to bycatch very broadly, NOAA Fisheries recognizes that the development and implementation of specific measures to address bycatch will occur in accordance with the appropriate statutory definitions and authorities. Managers must balance the need to optimize the yield from fisheries with the need to minimize bycatch and adverse impacts to populations and species.
Under the MSA, bycatch is defined as fish[1] that are harvested in a fishery, but that are not sold or kept for personal use, and includes both economic and regulatory discards. Economic discards are fish that are discarded because they are of undesirable size, sex, or quality, or for other economic reasons. Regulatory discards are fish that are caught but discarded because regulations do not allow fishermen to retain the fish; for example, fishermen may be required to discard fish under a certain size or of a specific species for conservation reasons.
The MSA requires that bycatch and bycatch mortality be minimized to the extent practicable. While fish released alive under a recreational catch and release fishery management program are exempt from the MSA’s definition of, and requirements for, bycatch, the MSA does require that, to the extent practicable, the mortality of released fish be minimized to ensure the extended survival of such fish.
For species protected under the ESA and MMPA, bycatch is a type of “take.” The ESA and MMPA have different definitions of take; however, in general, take includes any of the following actions: capturing, collecting, harming, harassing, hunting, killing, pursuing, shooting, trapping, or wounding any species protected by the MMPA or the ESA, or attempting to engage in any such conduct. While “take” is generally prohibited for species protected under the MMPA and ESA, there are some exceptions under both laws. For example, the MMPA includes a program to authorize and manage the taking of marine mammals incidental to commercial fishing operations.
Some level of bycatch is inherent in fishing operations. Impacts from bycatch and bycatch mortality vary across fisheries, and can, in some cases, have adverse biological, economic, and social consequences. Bycatch can negatively affect protected species by harming individuals, contributing to population declines, and impeding population recovery. Similarly, bycatch of fish can contribute to overfishing and impede efforts to rebuild fish stocks, or have negative economic and social impacts to fishermen and communities that rely on the economic benefits from a fishery or fish for food. Bycatch can also have ecological impacts by altering the availability of predators and prey that affect marine ecosystems and fishery productivity. Further, bycatch of habitat-forming benthic species like corals and sponges can damage important habitats for fish and other species. Working with partners and stakeholders, NOAA Fisheries has made significant advancements to improve the selectivity of fishing gear and modify fishing practices to reduce bycatch. However, bycatch still occurs because numerous species often inhabit the same productive areas of the ocean.
NOAA Fisheries has a long, productive history of working with partners, including the regional fishery management councils, Take Reduction Teams, the fishing industry, states and interstate marine fisheries commissions, academic groups, environmental organizations, international partners, and others to better understand bycatch; to develop new tools and approaches for reducing, estimating, and reporting bycatch; and to successfully implement management measures.
In 1998, NOAA Fisheries developed a report which evaluated NOAA Fisheries’ bycatch reduction efforts by region and identified national-level recommendations to further enhance bycatch reduction. In 2003, NOAA Fisheries developed our first National Bycatch Strategy, which identified concrete actions to reduce bycatch. This 2016 National Bycatch Reduction Strategy builds on the 2003 strategy and works to enhance the effectiveness of current programs—both domestically and internationally—while reflecting today’s challenges, laws, regulations, and policies.
NOAA Fisheries is committed to continuing to reduce and minimize bycatch now and into the future, where it is problematic or required by the MMPA and ESA. For the purposes of this Strategy, reducing bycatch includes efforts to minimize the amount of bycatch, as well as minimize the mortality, serious injury, and adverse impacts of bycatch that do occur. In addition, reducing bycatch can also include actions that increase utilization of fish that would otherwise be economic discards.
This strategy seeks to support actions that increase utilization of fish that would otherwise become economic discards, taking into account conservation and management requirements.
Finding ways to use legal catch that would otherwise be discarded for economic reasons can help reduce the magnitude of bycatch and provide economic benefit to the fishing industry.
Increased utilization involves finding incentives and developing markets to help reduce economic discards and increase the portion of the catch that is landed and sold.
NOAA Fisheries already supports increased utilization in some fisheries. For example, NOAA Fisheries’ 2017 Saltonstall Kennedy Grant Program includes the following funding priority: “Support development of new products from and markets for seafood processing waste and low value species.”
This National Bycatch Reduction Strategy sets national-level objectives and actions for all of NOAA Fisheries’ bycatch reduction programs across our science and management enterprise so we are better able to fulfill our statutory obligations. National and regional implementation plans will be developed in coordination with our partners. Due to the different bycatch issues across NOAA Fisheries’ regions and programs, the national-level objectives and actions presented in this document will be applied to the specific priorities and needs of each region and its fisheries through the implementation plans.
The objectives and actions presented below are designed to align ongoing and future regional, national, and international bycatch-related efforts with our overall goal of reducing bycatch and bycatch mortality.
The five objectives outlined below support the goal of this Strategy, to guide and coordinate NOAA Fisheries’ efforts to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality in support of sustainably managing fisheries and recovering and conserving protected species.
This Strategy provides a framework for how these objectives work together across our programs to support bycatch reduction efforts. We are most effective in achieving our goal when we coordinate across our programs within NOAA Fisheries and with our partners and stakeholders.
Cross-cutting and embedded within these objectives is an explicit recognition of the need to regularly evaluate our programs to ensure we are achieving objectives, learning from our experiences, and then continually improving based on new information. We evaluate the effectiveness of our science and management programs to determine whether programs achieve stated goals and identify needed improvements. As new science and management approaches for bycatch are considered, and ongoing programs are evaluated, we will work to promote the most effective solutions. When appropriate, we will revise programs to better meet conservation and management goals.
NOAA Fisheries monitors and estimates the amount and type of bycatch and bycatch mortality in fisheries to understand the effects of bycatch on fisheries and the related ecosystem. These data inform efforts to minimize bycatch and help managers to monitor the effectiveness of their conservation actions. With this objective, we seek to strengthen monitoring programs by using existing data collection methods (e.g., logbooks and observers). We will develop and invest in new data collection techniques (e.g., electronic technologies), and improve our estimation methods.
NOAA Fisheries conducts and supports research to improve assessments of bycatch on population and ecosystem dynamics, to modify fishing gear and operations to reduce bycatch, and to understand the socioeconomic effects of bycatch. We are committed to supporting innovative research that reduces bycatch and increases survival of discarded or released fish and released protected species, through gear technology, bycatch avoidance programs, and increased utilization of economic discards. This research enables us to develop tools that can help us further minimize bycatch and its impacts.
NOAA Fisheries works closely with partners to develop and implement targeted conservation and management measures that reduce bycatch and the impacts of bycatch through a variety of mechanisms, including best practices, national and regional guidance, improved decision-making tools, policies, and regulations. We will continue to make decisions based on the best available science and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. In addition, we will work to promote actions that reduce bycatch by more effectively utilizing fish that would have otherwise been economic discards.
NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement works closely with fishery and protected species managers to develop clear and enforceable regulations. We will continue to work with state, federal, and international partners to improve compliance with all applicable laws, reach out to fishermen about the importance of regulations to reduce bycatch, and conduct enforcement that supports compliance and effective implementation of fishery and protected species management measures.
NOAA Fisheries recognizes the importance of effective communication and coordination with partners and stakeholders to reduce bycatch and bycatch mortality. Fishermen and other stakeholders provide valuable information about our most pressing bycatch problems, creative ideas for possible solutions, and feedback about what is—and is not—working on the water. We will continue to improve our collaboration with partners and stakeholders to build a common understanding of bycatch, efforts to reduce bycatch and its impacts, and lessons learned. We will work to better communicate successes and stimulate similar activity in other areas.
Fisheries observer Sean Sullivan sorts and samples the day’s catch.
[1] Fish, as defined in the MSA, “means finfish, mollusks, crustaceans, and all other forms of marine animal and plant life other than marine mammals and birds.” 16 U.S.C. § 1802(12)
[2] “Take” of endangered species is prohibited under section 9 of the Endangered Species Act; under section 4, these protections may be extended to threatened species. 16 U.S.C. §§ 1333 and 1338
Oceanic whitetip shark. Hawaiʻi longline fishermen use leaders to connect weighed branch lines and baited hooks. A new rule prohibits steel wire leaders in the Hawaiʻi deep-set longline fishery, starting May 31, 2022. The rule aims to increase the survival of hooked oceanic whitetip sharks caught as bycatch in the Pacific Islands region. Credit: Andy Mann
Sea turtle escaping a net equipped with turtle excluder device.
