Our oceans are full of sophisticated, perfect traps: Nets, hooks, fishing lines. Designed to capture animals destined for our dinner tables, they often catch other wildlife too.
This accidental harvest is known as bycatch, and every year it causes the death of millions of marine animals, including whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds. Nets and gear can asphyxiate animals or cause fatal injuries; even when the animals are tossed back to sea, they frequently die. Bycatch is also a dilemma for fishermen—entangled creatures can destroy equipment, costing time, money, and fisheries’ reputations.
Over the decades, conservationists, researchers, and fishermen have developed ways to minimize various kinds of bycatch in different fishing stocks around the world. But putting these solutions to work is often a challenge, and many mitigation strategies are never widely implemented.
