Bycatch News
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From Dawn:
Pakistan has announced the country's first national action plan for the conservation of sharks. The 10-year plan will seek to restore declining shark populations, curb illegal finning and bycatch, protect critical marine habitats and promote sustainable fisheries in three phases, with an estimated $3.8 million to $5m in funding during its first five years.
The U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has announced the availability of $4.6 million for collaborative bycatch reduction projects. Proposed projects should include meaningful industry engagement in their identification, design, and/or implementation. The application period closes January 22, 2027.
More information can be found here: Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program | NOAA Fisheries
From the BBC: A Defra-funded study by the University of Exeter, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, and Cornwall Marine Pathology Team examined 175 stranded common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), and concluded that the most common cause of stranding (39%) was entanglement in fishing gear. Oher principal causes of stranding included infectious disease (25%), live stranding of healthy animals (10%), non-bycatch trauma (8%) and starvation (7%).
Read more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d8w8p9qvgo.
From Seafood Source: A juvenile humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) entangled in commercial fishing gear off the West Coast of the United States was successfully freed by a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-led team, however, injuries from the entanglement left the whale's jaw permanently stuck open, making it unable to feed and unlikely to survive. The four-day disentanglement effort recovered more than 3,000 feet of line, five sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria). pots, and several Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) traps. The incident has renewed calls for stronger whale-protection measures, including wider use of on-demand fishing gear designed to reduce entanglement risks.
AQUASERV will provide funded access to one or more research facilities in Europe to projects focused on advancing sustainable fisheries. More information is available: https://www.aquaserv-ri.eu/fisheries-call. The deadline for submission is December 4, 2026.
From University College Cork: A new study has identified persistent hotspots where harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) are most likely to interact with Irish gillnet fisheries, finding that the Celtic Sea and continental shelf off Ireland's west coast consistently had the highest risk of gillnet-porpoise interaction across seasons and years.
From UV News: Researchers from the University of Valencia's AI4OCEANS program have developed hybrid artificial intelligence frameworks to help reduce bycatch of vulnerable marine species, including sea turtles, sharks, and marine mammals. The methods automatically identify bycatch from images taken onboard fishing vessels.
From the Fishing Daily: New guidance developed by Clean Catch and the Shark Trust, in collaboration with the fishing industry, aims to help fishers in the United Kingdom identify species of sharks, skates, and rays, safely handle and release elasmobranchs, and meet recording obligations.
Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is currently accepting short applications for innovative technologies with significant scaling or commercialization potential. Funding focus areas include: sustaining fisheries, habitat health, ocean observing, and network support. Initial proposals are accepted through July 31, 2026.
Learn more: https://schmidtmarine.org/proposals/