Identifying the best fishing-suitable areas under the new European discard ban. (14th July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Paradinas, Iosu; Marín, Marcial; Grazia Pennino, Maria; López-Quílez, Antonio; Conesa, David; Barreda, David; Gonzalez, Maria; María Bellido, José
• Is Part Of: ICES journal of marine science. Volume 73:Number 10(2016)
• Page Start: 2479
• Page End: 2487
• Publication Date: 2016-07-14
• Subjects: beta regression -- by-catch -- discard ban -- fishing-suitable area -- spatial modelling; Ocean -- Periodicals; Fisheries -- Periodicals; Fishes -- Periodicals; Marine biology -- Bibliography -- Periodicals; 551.4605
• DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsw114
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1054-3139

Abstract

Abstract: The spatial management of fisheries has been repeatedly proposed as a discard mitigation measure. A number of studies have assessed the fishing suitability of an area based on units of by-catch or discard per unit effort. However, correct identification of fishing-suitable areas should assess biomass loss with respect to the benefits. This study therefore, proposes the analysis of by-catch ratios, which do represent benefit vs. loss and are standardized to a wide range of effort characteristics. Furthermore, our study proposes the use of two ratios: the proportion of total unwanted biomass out of the total catch as an indicator of the overall ecological impact, and the proportion of unwanted but regulated species biomass as a proxy for the economic impact on fishers resulting from the new European discard ban that prohibits the discard of regulated species. These discard ratios are modelled by means of a Bayesian hierarchical model, specifically, a spatio-temporal beta regression model, which has several advantages over the traditional arcsine transformation. Results confirm the standardizing capacity of by-catch ratios across vessels and identify at least two economically fishing-suitable areas where discards ratios are minimized by reducing unwanted catch.