Bycatch

Bycatch

The term “bycatch” is usually used for fish caught unintentionally in a fishery while intending to catch other fish. It may however also indicate untargeted catch in other forms of animal harvesting or collecting. Bycatch is of a different species, undersized individuals of the target species, or juveniles of the target species.

In 1997, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defined bycatch as “total fishing mortality, excluding that accounted directly by the retained catch of target species”. Bycatch contributes to fishery decline and is a mechanism of overfishing for unintentional catch.

There are at least four different ways the word “bycatch” is used in fisheries:

• Catch which is retained and sold but which is not the target species for the fishery
• Species/sizes/sexes of fish which fishermen discard
• Non-target fish, whether retained and sold or discarded
• Unwanted invertebrate species, such as echinoderms and non-commercial crustaceans, and various vulnerable species groups, including seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and elasmobranchs (sharks and their relatives).