Bycatch is the accidental capture of non targeted species by fishermen.
It is one of the greatest threats facing many endangered marine animals, including sea turtles and whales. (2). Many of the gear used by fisheries to capture fishes are inefficient due to the fact that they use an excessive amount of space in the ocean and are highly non selective- meaning they capture anything that is in the way of
the fish they want.
Thousands of miles of nets and lines are set in the world's oceans each day(6). The marine life include turtles, dolphins and juvenile fish, who are hauled up with the catch, and then discarded overboard dead or dying (5). With trawling, boats drag large nets along the seabed, catching almost everything in their path. They can be several miles long and up to 100 feet deep. Bycatch occurs because the nets also trap everything larger than the net’s mesh, which includes juvenile fish, sharks, seabirds, marine turtles and cetaceans (2).