NOAA Fisheries works to ensure sustainable fisheries and protected species recovery by collaborating with fishermen and other partners to avoid bycatch and safely discard or release bycatch that cannot be avoided.
Discard and release mortality occurs when fish or other animals are caught alive and then die after release. Severe injury or predation, such as being eaten by another animal at the water's surface after release, can cause immediate death. Stress or injury during capture or handling can leave a fish unable to effectively find or digest food, resulting in death at a later time.
NOAA Fisheries works to ensure sustainable fisheries and protected species recovery by collaborating with fishermen and other partners to avoid bycatch and safely discard or release bycatch that cannot be avoided. Discard and release mortality is not the best outcome of fishing activities, because a discarded dead fish cannot be served up on someone’s dinner plate, and it can no longer have offspring to contribute to future fish populations.
NOAA Fisheries created the Action Plan for Fish Release Mortality Science, in consultation with outside experts, to address the gaps in our understanding of fish discard and release mortality. We are working to reduce mortality, improve mortality estimates, and incorporate those improved estimates into stock assessments and management actions. With those goals in mind, we created an Action Plan for Fish Release Mortality Science.
The Action Plan builds upon work done in 2014, when NOAA Fisheries held a workshop with experts to produce a report. The report summarizes 15 years of NOAA Fisheries-funded discard and release mortality research, identifies data gaps, compiles estimates, and identifies criteria to help scientists and managers prioritize release mortality challenges.
The Action Plan includes a “simple multi-attribute rating technique” (SMART) tool that can help identify high priority stocks for discard and release mortality research. The SMART tool, which was tested at a 2015 experts workshop, can help a range of scientists and managers to more consistently prioritize research efforts. The SMART tool is an unbiased, repeatable, and quick assessment. It can easily be tailored to meet your needs by region, fish species, and fishery.
Fishermen and managers have developed and promoted practices designed to reduce mortality. Please visit the FishSmart website for examples. Fishermen and scientists have also developed technological solutions, including devices like fish elevators and reverse hooks (see the NOAA Fisheries video).
NOAA Fisheries greatly appreciates these efforts, along with the efforts of the 2014 and 2015 workshop experts from state agencies, fishing clubs, regional fishery management organizations, non-governmental organizations, and U.S. and Canadian federal government and academic institutions. Without valuable input from our partners, including fishermen, we would not have an Action Plan and supporting report.
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.
