ISSF Meeting on mitigation of by-catches in the Tuna Purse seine Floating Object fisheries: Sukarrieta, Spain 24-27 Nov 2009

A meeting to discuss and review potential mitigation measures related to by-catch in purse seine fisheries was convened by the ISSF, and held at the AZTI- Tecnalia laboratory, Sukarrieta, Bizkaia, Spain, 24-27 November 2009. The meeting concentrated on bycatch (including undesirable catch of target species) resulting from fishing effort on floating objects, including artificial FADs, by purse seine fleets targeting skipjack and yellowfin tuna worldwide. The objective of the meeting was to gather experts in the fields of gear technology, acoustics, shark, and tuna behavior, fisheries, and physiologists, to discuss with the skippers of purse seine vessels methods that could be used to minimize the bycatch of small tunas, sharks, marine turtles and pelagic finfish (mahi-mahis, wahoos, rainbow runners, etc.) in purse seine floating object fisheries. Although not classically considered a bycatch species, the issue of reducing fishing mortality of bigeye tuna on floating object sets was included as an important topic of the workshop/meeting.
Participants in the meeting were not meant to represent countries or organizations and their opinions reflected only their views as scientists and technicians. This meeting did not aim to produce recommendations endorsed by meeting participants, but rather aimed at gathering a list of ideas, which could then be considered by the ISSF for funding potential research projects.