Not all boats are equal: Understanding variations in bycatch among individual operators to improve environmental performance of fisheries

Fisheries bycatch continues to drive the decline of many threatened marine species such as sharks, mammals, and turtles. Bycatch is usually treated as an inevitable environmental phenomenon, but fishers have agency in how,... [ view full abstract ]

Fisheries bycatch continues to drive the decline of many threatened marine species such as sharks, mammals, and turtles. Bycatch is usually treated as an inevitable environmental phenomenon, but fishers have agency in how, when, and where to fish. Bycatch management measures are typically fleet-level, command and control approaches such as bycatch quotas and time-area closures that overlook variable skill and behavior among operators. These methods are effective in many instances but are difficult and expensive to enforce and can potentially stymy innovations to further reduce bycatch. Incentive-based measures are gaining traction as a potentially more efficient alternative. The appropriate set of incentives—both economic and social— can encourage changes in fisher attitudes and behavior that could reduce environmental impacts and enforcement costs.

This study investigates variations in threatened species bycatch between individual operators in Commonwealth Fisheries in Australia, representing different geographic areas, gear types, and target species. Results from Australia’s tuna longline sector show target catch to be negatively correlated with seabird bycatch, with a small number of operators generating the majority of the bycatch. We then test this pattern in different contexts by comparing the catch to bycatch ratios of individual operators across fishing sectors, gear types, and different types of bycatch species. Results illustrate the highly variable dynamics in different fishing sectors, indicating the importance of context-specific solutions, and suggest there is potential to increase overall environmental performance with incentive-based interventions that target specific performance groups within a fishery.