Overview of the fisheries and seabird bycatch in Chile

This document briefly describes the fishing activity in Chile as of 2012 and the active role of fisheries management in the mitigation of seabird bycatch in some of its fisheries.
The Chilean fishing fleet lands around 3 million tons every year. The fleet consists of 200 industrial vessels and 13,000 small-scale vessels, both accumulating a hold capacity of 219,219 cubic meters and a power of 1,182,785 hp. The most commonly used fishing gears correspond to gillnets, hand lines, long-line, purse-seine, trawling, and traps. However, the greatest catches correspond to purse-seine, trawling, hand line and long-line fleets.
The current General Law on Fisheries and Aquaculture of Chile (2013) adds conservation measures for minimizing bycatch as well as good practices in fishing operations. Chile has a real-time satellite monitoring system of the entire industrial fleet and from 2015, small-scale vessels greater than 15 m length shall also be included in this monitoring system.
Investigations conducted in some fisheries in Chile confirm the existence of seabird bycatch in coastal and high sea waters, and by both industrial and small-scale vessels.
This document provides details on the progress of the reduction of seabird bycatch in some Chilean fisheries.