Oceans cover 71 percent of the planet and are home to 80 percent of all life on Earth. But they are also fragile eco-systems threatened by massive over-fishing and pollution.
Bycatch is fish caught unintentionally while catching other fish. Many of these are simply thrown back out into the sea, dead! The total number of such discarded fish is 7.3 million tonnes per year - nearly 10 percent of all fish caught in oceans.
Some seafood is worse than other
Shrimp fishing accounts for nearly two thirds of the world's discarded fish, while producing 1.4 percent of all caught seafood. In some cases, more than 20 tons of fish are discarded for only 1 ton of shrimp caught.
Good things are happening
The by-catch intensity of certain fisheries is believed to have decreased in recent years due to the wider use of selective fishing gear and “best practice” fishing techniques
You can make a difference !
There are ways to fish in sustainable manners, and you can pick products that can make a difference. We are working to help you find them.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that the total amount of discarded fish declined from 27 million tonnes (Mt) in 1994, to 20 Mt in 1998, and to 7.3 Mt in 2004, although data on by-catch is limited. However, such a downward trend in global discards can in part be explained by changes in estimation methods.