A third of bycatch cases are juvenile individuals
The Mediterranean Sea is one of the most overfished seas in the world. This factor, besides the increase in the last few years of less selective fisheries, generates a very high rate of bycatch.
Bycatch, in the fishing industry, is the incidental capture of species the fisheries are not interested in, because the species are non-targeted, don’t have commercial value or are protected species.
Oceana declared in the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) that “one out of three fish discarded overboard is undersized in the Mediterranean. Oceana urges to preserve the areas where fish spawn and breed, and to adopt minimum landing sizes for all commercial species.”
In addition, according to International Union of Conservation of Nature IUCN, the accidental capture of vulnerable species in the fishing gear is a key threat to the Mediterranean Sea for various taxonomic groups, including sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals, cartilaginous fish, corals and sponges.
The solution to the bycatch problem is contemplated from a multidisciplinary approach to find progressively more selective fishing gear. Our contribution is to work from the point of view of conservation, so from SUBMON we promote strategies for marine custody and we encourage traditional and selective fishing gear to enable sustainable extraction of marine resources.
