February 19, 2016
Dangerous fishing may be endangered, new study finds
Catch shares, a form of “rights-based” fisheries management adopted for several fisheries in the Pacific Northwest, may put an end to the kind of daring exploits chronicled in the “Deadliest Catch.”
Fishermen place Sablefish pots off the coast of Half Moon Bay, California.Ethan Righter
A new study of fishing practices found that the “risky” behavior that makes fishing one of the most dangerous lines of work dropped sharply following the adoption of catch shares management in the West Coast fixed gear sablefish fishery.
Fewer boats fished during the stormiest weather, with fishing on the highest wind days dropping by 79 percent under catch shares, according to the research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The decline in rough-weather fishing represents “a revolution in risk-taking behavior by fishermen,” wrote the authors, Lisa Pfeiffer of NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Trevor Gratz of the University of Washington.
The researchers said they expect corresponding reductions in injuries, pollution events, vessel losses, search-and-rescue missions and deaths from fishing accidents under catch shares management.
Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries.
Co-author Gratz, while an undergraduate student at the UW, was supported by an endowment from Rao and Usha Varanasi to complete an internship at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, where he worked with Pfeiffer.
