Bycatch and Monitoring

Herring play a vital role in the North Atlantic ecosystem—serving as food for tuna, cod, striped bass, seabirds, dolphins and whales. But herring and their predators are threatened by industrial-scale fishing by midwater trawlers. Up to 165 feet in length, these ships are the largest fishing vessels...

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Bibliographic Details
Format: Manuscript
Language:English
Published: Herring Alliance 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:https://issuelab.org/resources/26542/26542.pdf
https://issuelab.org/permalink/resource/26542
Description
Summary:Herring play a vital role in the North Atlantic ecosystem—serving as food for tuna, cod, striped bass, seabirds, dolphins and whales. But herring and their predators are threatened by industrial-scale fishing by midwater trawlers. Up to 165 feet in length, these ships are the largest fishing vessels on the East Coast, capable of netting 500,000 pounds of sea life in one tow. Although these vessels fish for Atlantic herring, the fish, birds and marine mammals that feed on herring schools are also vulnerable to accidental capture, injury or death in the trawlers' massive nets.