Identifying Conservation Priorities in the Face of Unknowns: Working to Reduce Bycatch and Improve Fishing Opportunities in the U.S. and Around the World

Despite ongoing improvements to fisheries management, bycatch continues to be a significant issue that undermines efforts to rebuild depleted populations in the U.S. and around the world. More than one billion pounds of bycatch are discarded in the U.S. every year, much of which is comprised of species and stocks that are already depleted or have unknown conservation statuses. Over the last decade, Oceana has advocated for science-based fisheries management policies to reduce bycatch, but one of the largest challenges is identifying the most critical regions and fisheries that would benefit from conservation efforts. To help guide advocacy and conservation planning, we have developed a metric to evaluate which U.S. fisheries have the most significant bycatch problems, including information about the volume, rate, and composition of discarded fish and the number of injuries and mortalities to protected species. The metric can also be adapted to include preexisting measures to reduce bycatch, such as gear requirements, bycatch caps, or seasonal closures. The components of this model, including data gaps and uncertainty, can be weighted and scored for an overall measure of the bycatch problem and the feasibility of implementing potential solutions. Evaluation tools and metrics such as these are necessarily both quantitative and qualitative due to the significant uncertainty in fisheries catch data. This interdisciplinary and multi-faceted approach ensures a holistic evaluation of a complex issue. Prioritizing conservation advocacy in this way can lead to a more efficient use of organizational resources and allow for targeted public awareness campaigns, proactive industry collaboration, and better outreach to federal and local resource managers. Here we review the elements included in this planning tool, discuss scored outcomes of U.S. fisheries, and evaluate the implications and usefulness of this approach to prioritize conservation advocacy both domestically and at the international level.