DISCARD STUDY ENGLISH NE COAST 1990/91

Summary

Discards of demersal fish are a major concern at the present time in the campaign to conserve fish stocks. Discards are those marine animals and fish which are brought aboard the vessel and then returned to the sea because they are unmarketable or below the legal minimum size. They do not include fish escaping through the meshes of the net during towing or those escaping whilst the net is alongside but still in the water. The discard rates in the past have been alleged to be high but the estimates have so far not been quantified in the English and Welsh fisheries. The Scottish Office (SOAFD) through the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen, have some data for Scottish vessels but the study described in this report makes the first real estimates for one important fishery – that of the North East Coast of England in ICES Area IVb. This report has been produced from a scanned original and may therefore contain some formatting and other inaccuracies. In cases where this affects the technical content, a paper copy of the original report can still be obtained from Seafish.

Publication Reference No.

SR395

Publication date

01 January 1992