Escape mortality of cod, saithe, and haddock in a Barents Sea trawl fishery

• Published in: ICES Journal of Marine Science
• Main Authors: Ingólfsson, Ólafur Arnar, Soldal, Aud Vold, Huse, Irene, Breen, Mike
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press (OUP) 2007
• Subjects: Ecology; Aquatic Science; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Oceanography; Barents Sea
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsm150; http://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article-pdf/64/9/1836/29129305/fsm150.pdf

Abstract Ingólfsson, Ó. A., Soldal, A. V., Huse, I., and Breen, M. 2007. Escape mortality of cod, saithe, and haddock in a Barents Sea trawl fishery. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 000–000. We investigated the survival of gadoid fish in the Barents Sea escaping from a demersal trawl during commercial fishing conditions, with and without a sorting grid, at high and low levels of fishing intensity. The mortality of cod and saithe was negligible and unrelated to experimental conditions. Haddock mortality was generally greater than observed in earlier experiments and inversely related to fish length. Any possible effects of experimental conditions were hidden by large variability in the observed rates of mortality. We conclude that the observed mortality of haddock is confounded by methodological problems, particularly the instability of the observation cages, and does not reflect the true escape mortality. Cod and saithe are capable of surviving the stress of passage through, and escape from, the trawl, whereas haddock are more vulnerable, despite being a closely related species.