maximios

This summer, the Boston office of the Fund for the Public Interest is building support to save the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale! With only 360 individuals left, this species’ population is still declining due to human interaction. We are calling on the Biden administration to pass a rule to slow vessel speeds to avoid deadly […]

This study examined the effectiveness of various sizes of guarding nets to reduce bycatch (specifically crustaceans) in cuttlefish trammel net fisheries. All nets did siginificantly reduce crustacean capture, notably spider crabs, but only the smaller mesh guarding net (20mm instead of 40mm) had no significant impact on target cuttlefish catch. However, guardnets may benefit fishers […]

Sharks among the most endangered groups of animals from bycatch. A new study examined the impacts of retention bans on shark populations. It concluded that in some cases they can be beneficial, but avoiding bycatch in the first place is of paramount importance such as making modifications to fishing gear and practices. Article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/faf.12892

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) determined that the scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini), an Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS), is overfished (NOAA 04/28/2011).  This finding is based on a stock assessment of the population in US Atlantic waters published by Hayes et al (2009) in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.  His study, completed […]

The Society for Marine Mammalogy holds regular, biennial, international meetings to enhance collaboration, share ideas, and improve the quality of research on marine mammals within the scientific community. The 2019 biennial meeting will be held jointly with the European Cetacean Society in a World Marine Mammal Science Conference. This conference will be held in Barcelona, […]

For many years Maine lobster fishermen have maintained that their gear is not involved in right whale entanglements. Nevertheless, many scientists believed that this had more to do with cryptic entanglements in which very few entanglements are observed and thus there would not be an opportunity to study from where the entangling gear originated. The […]

A Nordmore sorting grid, which has been required in the Gulf of Maine Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) trawl fishery since 1992, was found to decrease bycatch of 8 groundfish species when observed tows before and after the grate requirement were compared. Catch rates of shrimp increased possibly due to higher catch rates of large shrimp.

This is a meta-analysis that quantified the effects of 42 technical measures on the target catch and the bycatch of seabirds, elasmobranchs, marine mammals and sea turtles, evaluating which methods were most effective at mitigating bycatch of each fauna group. Overall, mitigation methods reduced bycatch while having no statistically significant effect on the target catch, […]

In 2022, Mexican authorities placed hundreds of concrete blocks with entangling metal hooks to discourage gill net use; as a result, there has been a substantial decline in gill net use in the area, and healthy vaquitas have been observed. However, in order to fully protect the vaquita from extinction, more of the population’s distribution […]

The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium’s 2018 annual meeting is November 7-8, 2018. At this meeting, various stakeholders convene to discuss and share research, new techniques, management strategies, and other facets of right whale conservation. This is the only opportunity for this gathering and sharing of information and so is invaluable to the conservation of […]

Fishing is an important economic mainstay of New England, and part of its cultural heritage. North Atlantic right whales are a critical natural component of the region’s coastal waters. Where the two meet entanglements happen, mainly as whales become wrapped in buoy ropes used to locate and haul pots resting on the seafloor. Two unlikely […]

Most bycatch reduction techniques so far implemented around the world have been in commercial fisheries within developed countries, which have relatively strong regulatory and enforcement capacity, and that generally can absorb increased expenses or reduced revenue from regulated modifications to fishing methods. For several years, the NEAq has been working with local fishermen, the Argentinian […]

Underwater setting chutes, blue-dyed bait, and side-sets each reduced the bycatch of seabirds (Laysan and black-footed albatross and short-tailed shearwater) in the Hawaiian longline tuna and swordfish fisheries. Side-sets showed the most promise for a bycatch mitigation technique while blue-dyed bait was the least effective at reducing seabird bycatch and shows the least promise of […]

Bird-scaring lines and an underwater setting funnel reduced seabird bycatch in longlines off the coast of Norway. Catch of haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), torsk (Brosme brosme), and ling (Molva molva) increased with use of the underwater setting funnel.