Australian fishery bycatch varies widely between industrial vessels

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-08-08 19:00

Australia; QLD; TAS

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Australian scientists investigated bycatch - when marine species are unintentionally caught up in fishers' nets - in five industrial Australian fisheries, and say they found vessels that were able to target species efficiciently, avoiding high levels of bycatch, in all five. However, not all vessels were this targeted, so encouraging them all to adopt best practice at the vessel level, rather than focusing on the fishing fleet as a whole, could minimise bycatch, the authors say. Fisheries bycatch continues to drive the decline of many threatened marine species such as marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles and sharks, they add, so tackling it should be a priority.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Sustainability

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: CSIRO, The University of Queensland, University of Tasmania

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