Six Decades of Research on Fishing Gear and Fish Behavior in the North Atlantic

Six decades of research on fishing gear and fish behavior in the North Atlantic

Pingguo He

This presentation will serve as a backgrounder linking bycatch issues in marine fisheries and fish guidance/control challenges in fishways and powerplant intakes. The presentation will illustrate important technological advances and research priorities related to management of marine fisheries in the past six decades, and discuss issues surrounding the understanding of fish behavior near fishing gears, and its relation to fishing gear selectivity, bycatch, discards, and capture efficiency in commercial fisheries. The pioneering use of cine camera to record fishing gear and fish behavior around the gear opened a wide opportunity for acquiring knowledge and provided new understanding on how fishing gear worked and how fish reacted to fishing gears. Further development of underwater observation and/or monitoring techniques such as low light video cameras, acoustic cameras, and split beam sonars provided insight on fish behavior in deepwater and low light conditions. The requirement for reducing bycatch and discards since 1990s added momentum to the understanding of fish behavior and designing of species-selective fishing gears and operational methods. Challenging and sometime conflicting demands for species/size selective and ecosystem friendly harvesting will also be discussed.