Bycatch

Fishing methods such as trawling and driftnets are squandering endangered marine species, and threatening the sustainable livelihoods of local fishermen.

Illegal marine fishing trawler vessels are squandering endangered marine species

Every year, millions of tons of fish, marine mammals, turtles, birds and other organisms are accidentally caught and discarded as bycatch.

Bycatch not only affects marine ecosystems but also the millions of people who rely on healthy fish stocks for food and employment. While virtually all marine fisheries result in some bycatch there are those, particularly driftnets and bottom trawling, that result in the highest rates of sea species mortality and environmental damage.

EJF CAMPAIGNS

To end the illegal use of driftnets in the Mediterranean.
To ensure that European fishing vessels operating in distant waters of Africa and Asia are subject to regulations of a comparable standard to vessels operating in European waters.
To develop an International Plan of Action on Bycatch Reduction pressing governments to take immediate action to reduce bycatch in all fisheries.
Reduce bycatch in tropical shrimp trawl fisheries.

Watch this short film that documents the enormous environmental and social impacts of bycatch in North Sumatra, Indonesia.

"‘When the trawlers come, they take everything in the sea. Once they have it on board, they keep only the valuable fish. Everything else they dump over the side, you can see it out there, dead fish floating everywhere. They are taking so many that sometimes the only way we have fish to eat is if we pick these dead fish out of the water."
Local fisherman in Sierra Leone

"It’s true, you see all the waste in the net. Anyone would be concerned. We are destroying where the fish live"
Trawler fisherman in Indonesia

Read EJF's Bycatch reports