Unraveling Bycatch: The Multi-Layered Policy Context for Bycatch Management

“Bycatch” has long been a foundational concept in fisheries, often taken to be synonymous with “waste” – ancillary mortality of non-landed organisms.  The word is used in a variety of often disparate ways in U.S. domestic policy and law, to encompass a wide array of interactions of fishing gears with ecosystem elements. “Regulatory bycatch” refers to discarding of target organisms that is proscribed by management measures (e.g., trip limits).  “Economic discards” is discarding of target organisms that are less valuable, but otherwise allowed to be harvested.  “Discard mortality” is mortality of commercially or recreationally caught target species that are released dead or die soon after.  Other important bycatch policy concepts include mortality of prohibited species within fisheries management units (e.g. certain sharks), incidental catch of unmanaged species (e.g. jellyfishes), “take” of species protected under the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammals Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and removals by fishing gears of living organisms from the sea floor (e.g. sponges, gorgonians and corals), among others.

 Each of these relationships is unique, not only in the nature of the removals from marine ecosystems and their cascading effects, but also in their management frameworks, social and economic implications, and solutions.  For instance, the nation’s principal fishery management law, the Magnuson Stevens Act, uses an “extent practicable” reduction strategy for “bycatch,” but much stronger standards for other types of mortality. We will discuss and debate these issues, and consider whether the complex and cumbersome concept of “bycatch” remains useful in the current governance milieu.