Incidental catch is a term, used in fisheries, to refer to that part of the catch which was not originally targeted, but was caught and retained anyway. It can be contrasted with discards, which is that part of the catch which was not originally targeted, but was caught and discarded, and bycatch, which is the term for all the species caught apart from the targeted species.
Bycatch = Incidental catch + Discarded catch
The operational definitions used by the FAO for incidental catch and other related catches are as follows:
- Target catch: The catch of a species or species assemblage which is primarily sought in a fishery, such as shrimp, flounders, cods
- Incidental catch: Retained catch of non-targeted species
- Discarded catch (usually shortened to discards): That portion of the catch returned to the sea as a result of economic, legal, or personal considerations.
- Bycatch: Discarded catch plus incidental catch.
Famous quotes containing the words incidental and/or catch:
“Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers’ glory—to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O, my soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)