News

As a service to the long-term sustainability of both fish stocks and fishing communities, WWF has established an online resource providing up-to-date information on bycatch (the capture of non-target creatures in fishing gear) and how to reduce it.

The new website, accessed through WWF’s familiar www.panda.org portal, aims to take fishers, consumers and those simply concerned, through the whole bycatch story, from problems to proven or potential solutions.

“Bycatch costs fishers time and money,” said Amanda Nickson, Head of WWF’s Bycatch Initiative. “It contributes to the already critical problem of over-fishing, it jeopardizes future revenue, jobs and long-term food security.

“It is also a major killer of marine wildlife. How many more reasons do you need to change the way we fish?”

Each year, many millions of tonnes of marine animals such as turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks, and seabirds, right through to juvenile fish, corals, crabs and starfish etc are caught by modern, indiscriminate yet highly efficient fishing gear and thrown back into the water (‘discarded’), dead or dying.