Bycatch Data Reporting from Observer Programs Database

Overview

Fishermen sometimes catch and discard animals they do not want, cannot sell, or are not allowed to keep. This is collectively known as "bycatch." Bycatch can be fish, but also includes other animals such as dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and seabirds that become hooked or entangled in fishing gear. NOAA Fisheries is responsible for monitoring and managing bycatch and bycatch mortality of living marine resources in U.S. fisheries. 

As part of that effort, we have produced the U.S. National Bycatch Report (NBR) and updates to the report. The NBR project is the only national-level NOAA Fisheries effort to summarize bycatch in major U.S. fisheries around the country.  Although the report is not a requirement under the Magnuson-Stevens Act or other law, these reports have provided a compilation of bycatch information as well as national and regional bycatch overviews.  

NOAA Fisheries has undertaken a multi-year project to enhance the NBR and its associated database by transforming the NBR into a database product housed within the Fisheries One Stop Shop (FOSS) platform.  This new database, called the Bycatch Data Reporting from Observer Programs (Bycatch DROP) database, will take advantage of database flexibilities within the FOSS and allow timely uploads of bycatch estimates through database links and GitHub connections to existing, peer-reviewed regional bycatch data sets.

In June 2024, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report entitled “Efforts to Reduce and Monitor Unintentional Catch and Harm Need Better Tracking”.  The report contained four recommendations, including the following related to the NBR/FOSS database:

“The Assistant Administrator for NMFS should develop a comprehensive written plan for reporting on bycatch estimates from the enhanced Fisheries One Stop Shop database, including how the agency will communicate over time on bycatch levels, trends, and information gaps.”

In response to this recommendation, NOAA Fisheries published the following action item in a December 2024 technical memorandum on bycatch estimation methodologies:

At the end of each calendar year, beginning with calendar year 2024, NOAA Fisheries will review the status of all regional bycatch estimate data sets added to the FOSS database over the past 12 months.  As resources allow, this review will identify:

• The regional fisheries for which bycatch estimates and related landings data have been added to the database.
• The taxonomic categories of the regional fishery bycatch estimates that have been added (i.e., fish, marine mammal, sea turtle, and/or seabird).
• Changes to bycatch monitoring and/or estimation procedures over the past 12 months.
• Remaining information gaps and general plans for filling those gaps.
• As appropriate, summaries of fishery-specific bycatch levels and trends, assuming the database is in a “production environment” (i.e., live for public users).

By the end of March 2025, and annually thereafter, NOAA Fisheries will publish an online update summarizing the results of the annual review described above.

Bycatch DROP Database Update for 2024

During 2024, NOAA Fisheries established several communication channels between databases to ensure timely and consistent transmission of regional bycatch estimates to the Bycatch DROP database. Specifically, in 2024 the Bycatch DROP database established links with databases housing large fish bycatch datasets for Greater Atlantic, Northwest, Alaska, and Pacific Islands fisheries. The Bycatch DROP database also established connections with regional GitHub platforms housing protected species bycatch estimates.  Tables 1 and 2 below describe the bycatch estimate datasets that have been uploaded to, or that are being reviewed for, the Bycatch DROP database, as well as the taxonomic categories related to those estimates.

Table 1: Bycatch Estimates Transmitted and Uploaded to Bycatch DROP Database after Quality Assurance Review (MM = Marine Mammal, ST = Sea Turtle, GA = Greater Atlantic, PI = Pacific Islands, SE = Southeast, NW = Northwest, SW = Southwest)

Table 2: Bycatch Estimates Transmitted to Bycatch DROP Database and Being Reviewed for Quality Assurance (MM = Marine Mammal, ST = Sea Turtle, GA = Greater Atlantic, NA = Not Available, PI = Pacific Islands, NW = Northwest)

NOAA Fisheries implemented only a few major changes to bycatch monitoring and/or estimation procedures in 2024, focused on Northwest fisheries.  Northwest changes to bycatch monitoring and estimation procedures for 2024 included the following:

• For the West Coast Groundfish Bottom Trawl Catch Shares fishery, NOAA Fisheries estimated bycatch for vessels that use pot and bottom trawl gear based on expansion of observer coverage rather than electronic monitoring coverage because video review of this fishery was less than 100% in 2024.
• The West Coast Groundfish Observer Program observed the Directed Pacific Halibut fishery from 2017 to 2023 but stopped observing this fishery in 2024; however, the Bycatch DROP database will include bycatch estimates for this fishery for 2017 to 2023.
• NOAA Fisheries began to produce leatherback sea turtle bycatch estimates in 2024 using the same Bayesian methods that have been used to estimate marine mammal and seabird interactions. (See Chan and Benaka 2024 for additional information.)

The highest-priority data gap to address during 2025 is the lack of Bycatch DROP database bycatch estimates for the Southeast region for 2016 and beyond.  These estimates are not available because the complexity and diversity of fisheries in the Southeast region do not lend themselves to straightforward standardization and automation of bycatch estimates.  The Southeast region features fisheries ranging from industrial-scale shrimp trawlers to artisanal handline vessels and includes more commercial vessels than the rest of the regions of the United States combined.  Many of these vessels are not easy to monitor with human observers due to their small size, and many of their fishing practices do not lend themselves to standardized bycatch estimation.  However, there are efforts underway in the Southeast to develop standardized estimation methodologies and produce automated annual bycatch estimates.

A lower-priority data gap will be obtaining additional protected species bycatch estimates for fisheries operating in the Northwest and Pacific Islands regions.  NOAA Fisheries will obtain these estimates by creating additional connections with regional GitHub platforms housing protected species bycatch estimates.

Because the Bycatch DROP database is not yet in a production environment (i.e., live for public users), NOAA Fisheries has not developed any summaries of fishery-specific bycatch levels and trends.  NOAA Fisheries will test the capabilities of the Bycatch DROP database with internal agency bycatch experts in 2025, which should set the stage for moving the database to the production environment in late 2025 or 2026.

Previous National Bycatch Reports and Updates

The National Bycatch Report webpage includes the 2011 U.S. National Bycatch Report, as well as three updates to the report and various supplemental tables.