Protecting Ocean Wildlife
Now available: The Bycatch Solutions Hub
The Hub is a first-of-its-kind tool just for the seafood industry, highlighting voluntary, industry-led adoption of best practices and innovations to protect ocean wildlife.
Sustainable seafood means reducing the harm from fishing to sharks, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds.
Hundreds of thousands of sharks, whales and dolphins, sea turtles, and seabirds are harmed or killed in commercial fishing each year. “Bycatch,” the catch of non-target species, is the biggest, single threat to the sustainability of marine fisheries.
There are practical solutions
Key strategies for reducing bycatch include:
- Adoption of best practices
- More fishery observers
- Development of new technologies.
Gear Innovation in Lobster and Crab Fisheries
The adoption of ropeless, or on-demand, fishing technologies can substantially reduce the risk of entanglement for critically endangered marine mammals, and allow fishing and whales to co-exist.
Reducing bycatch in longline tuna fisheries
New research from SFP highlights the impacts of tuna longline fishing on vulnerable ocean wildlife in the Western Central Pacific Ocean and recommends actions for buyers of longline-caught tuna.
Solve My Bycatch Problem tool
Our interactive Solve My Bycatch Problem tool allows users to find and evaluate various bycatch solutions, based on their relevance to specific species, effectiveness, ease of implementation, and cost.
Bycatch Audits
SFP partners with Birdlife International and Whale and Dolphin Conservation to conduct bycatch audits of major retailers’ seafood supply chains, to identify those source fisheries that present significant bycatch risks and identify actions the retailers can take to address those risks.
Why retailers should care about bycatch
Bycatch threatens seafood retailers and the entire supply chain.
- Seafood production contributing to the decline of wildlife violates sustainable sourcing and conservation commitments.
- Engaging in practices that harm ocean wildlife generates negative reactions, unwanted public attention, and scrutiny by policy makers.
- Consumers care about conservation. Public opinion research shows shoppers overwhelmingly think retailers should make sure their seafood does not harm ocean wildlife — especially getting producers to use less damaging ways to fish.
Highlights
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Reducing Bycatch in Pacific Ocean Longline Tuna Fisheries
New research from SFP highlights the impacts of commercial tuna longline fishing on endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species in the Western Central Pacific Ocean, and recommends actions that buyers of longline-caught canned and fresh/frozen tuna can take to reverse the decline of sharks, sea turtles, and seabirds in the region. -
Protecting whales and ensuring a sustainable future for lobster and crab fisheries
Ropeless fishing technologies can substantially reduce the risk of entanglement for the Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale. -
Protecting Sea Turtles in the Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Fishery
Fishery improvement projects are reducing the number of sea turtles caught in shrimp nets through provisions for the use of turtle excluder devices. -
Asda’s Commitment to Addressing Bycatch Issues in its Source Fisheries
Based on the results of a bycatch audit by SFP, UK supermarket Asda committed to addressing risks to sharks, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals in its source fisheries.
What Can I Do?
Learn more about how you can help protect ocean wildlife and reduce bycatch in fisheries.
Related Publications and Resources
