MRC - Some Fishing Methods Much Better Than Others

While the collapse of the New England groundfish fisheries, were widely covered by the media, the ongoing damage to marine ecosystems caused by fishing is largely overlooked. Currently, almost one-quarter of global fisheries catches are discarded at sea, dead or dying, each year. Scientist estimates that 2.3 billion pounds of sea life were discarded in 2000 in the United States alone. In addition, many uncommon, threatened, or endangered species, such as sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals, are killed in fishing operations. There is growing concern that fishing gear that contacts the seafloor damage the habitats that marine life depend on for their survival. Using data compiled from over 170 sources, an expert panel of fishers, mangers, and scientist reviewed impacts of ten commercial fishing gears widely used in the United States. Dredge and bottom trawling were found to be the worst impacting while hook and line the least.

	Dredges	Gillnets Bottom	Gillnets Midwater	HooK and Line	Longline Bottom	Longline Pelagic	Pots and Traps	Purse Seines	Trawls Bottom	Trawls Midwater
Physical Structure	High	Med	Low	Low	Low/Med	Low	Med	Low	High	Low
Seafloor	High	Low/Med	Low	Low	Low/Med	Low	Low/Med	Low	High	Low
Shellfish	Med/High	Low	Low	Low	Low	Low	Med/High	Low	Med	Low
Finfish	Low/Med	Med/High	Med/High	Low/Med	Med/High	Med	Low/Med	Low/Med	High	Med
Sharks	Low	Med	Med/High	Med	Med	Med/High	Low	Low/Med	Low/Med	Low/Med
Marine mammals	Low	Med/High	High	Low	Low	Med	Med	Med	Low/Med	Low/Med
Seabirds & Turtles	Low	Med	High	Low/Med	Low/Med	High	Low	Low/Med	Low/Med	Low/Med

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