What Happens When a Harbour Porpoise Encounters a Fishing Net?

Fishing nets set on the seafloor accidentally catch and kill thousands of small whales and dolphins every year. This accidental capture, known as bycatch, is one of the biggest human-caused threats to these animals. In the Baltic Sea, harbour porpoises are particularly affected by bycatch in fishing nets. Although many studies have investigated how well porpoises can detect nets, we still know surprisingly little about … Continue reading What Happens When a Harbour Porpoise Encounters a Fishing Net?

Identifying fishery risk zones for seabird populations

Part of our Spotlight, Management of wide-ranging species, Thomas A. Clay explains how advances in remote tracking technology are offering us a glimpse into the mysterious life of the albatross in the hope of developing conservation measures to protect seabirds from bycatch risks. The authors have adapted this post from an article they previously shared with BirdLife International. Albatrosses are iconic voyagers, well known for … Continue reading Identifying fishery risk zones for seabird populations

Infographic: Dynamic management tools

Heather Welch et al. provide an operationalization framework for implementing dynamic management tools to tackle a range of disturbance management goals, including minimization of protected species bycatch. See their work presented as an infographic here: Read the full open access article, Practical considerations for operationalizing dynamic management tools in Journal of Applied Ecology. Continue reading Infographic: Dynamic management tools