(Press-News.org) New rules banning fishermen from throwing away unwanted fish they have caught could harm wildlife – and fail to improve fish stocks, a University of Strathclyde report has found.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests new reforms to the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) – ending the practice of throwing away unwanted fish caught at sea – may have unintended consequences. The new CFP took effect on 1 January 2014 and will phase out the discarding of fish between 2015 and 2019.
The aim is to improve fish stocks – but Professor Mike Heath, who led the research team from Strathclyde's Department of Mathematics and Statistics, said this outcome was uncertain.
Professor Heath said: "Wildlife everywhere capitalises on waste from human activity, and discarded fish are food for a wide range of seabirds, marine mammals, seabed animals and other fish. Therefore, banning discards of fish could have unintended effects on the ecosystem."
The team developed a computer simulation model of the North Sea marine ecosystem and used it to investigate the effects of changes in the fishing pressure and the proportion of fishery catch which is discarded at sea. Forcing vessels to land fish which are currently discarded leads to adverse effects on seabirds and marine mammals – and on seabed animals – but without any improvements in fish stocks, the study found.
In contrast, changing fishing practices – so that unwanted fish are no longer captured – had dramatic effects in the model which affected the entire food web, with major benefits for birds, mammals, and fish stocks. This could be achieved by "improved selectivity", through the use of fishing gear designed to avoid unwanted catches and judicious timing and location of fishing.
Although both approaches to eliminating discarding satisfy the societal demand for reductions in waste of natural resources, the conservation benefits are quite different, the study authors found.
Dr Robin Cook, who also worked on the research, said: "Our results highlight the importance of considering the broader ecosystem consequences of fishery management. Policy changes to reduce discards affect the food web and, without careful consideration, may dissipate or negate intended benefits.
"Inflating landing quotas to accommodate the entire catch is an inadequate solution with few conservation benefits. On the other hand, the effective reductions in harvest rates resulting from changes in fishing practices to eliminate the capture of unwanted fish can deliver conservation benefits, especially in heavily exploited systems.
"These ecological effects need to be considered alongside the practical, societal and economic issues in developing a sustainable policy."
Discarding of undersize and low-value fish by commercial fisheries is not a new problem. UK Parliamentary debates in the 1890s condemned the quantities of plaice thrown away by fishing fleets in the North Sea because they were too small to be sold.
Today, the waste of living resources due to discarding is considered unacceptable. For this reason, the EU has reformed the Common Fisheries Policy in an effort to eradicate the practice by obliging fishing vessels to land all of their catch.
The key issue for the policy is the extent to which the landing obligation is compensated by an increase in quotas. The Strathclyde research shows that full compensation, in which quotas are raised by an amount equivalent to the quantity of fish currently discarded, negates any conservation benefits. On the other hand, forcing improvements in the selectivity of fisheries by offering no compensation has dramatic conservation benefits; hence there is a trade-off between practicality and ecological benefit.
INFORMATION:
Notes to editors:
The University of Strathclyde is a leading international technological university which is recognised for strong research links with business and industry, commitment to enterprise and skills development, and knowledge sharing with the private and public sectors. The University was named UK University of the Year in the 2012 Times Higher Education (THE) Awards. In the 2013 THE Awards, the University was named Entrepreneurial University of the Year.
Further information:
Corporate Communications
University of Strathclyde
T: 0141 548 4373
E: corporatecomms@strath.ac.uk
Concerns raised over EU ban on ditching unwanted fish
2014-05-13
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Researchers identify genetic marker linked to OCD
2014-05-13
A group of researchers led by Johns Hopkins scientists say they have identified a genetic marker that may be associated with the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), whose causes and mechanisms are among the least understood among mental illnesses.
The results of the research are published online May 13 by the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
"If this finding is confirmed, it could be useful," says study leader Gerald Nestadt, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of ...
Humans and companion animals harbor the same types of MRSA infections
2014-05-13
A shared population of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria circulates both in humans and companion animals, according to a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
"Our study demonstrates that humans and companion animals readily exchange and share MRSA bacteria from the same population," says senior author Mark Holmes, senior lecturer in preventive veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge in England. MRSA naturally lives on the skin and also causes difficult-to-treat ...
E-cigarettes and mental health
2014-05-13
Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that people living with depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions are twice as likely to have tried e-cigarettes and three times as likely to be current users of the controversial battery-powered nicotine-delivery devices, as people without mental health disorders.
They are also more susceptible to trying e-cigarettes in the future in the belief that doing so will help them quit, the scientists said. The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid.
The study will ...
Novel target found for chemotherapy-resistant leukemia cells
2014-05-13
Researchers at Children's Hospital Los Angeles have discovered that by targeting a particular receptor, chemotherapy-resistant cancer cells can be killed in an acute form of childhood leukemia, offering the potential for a future treatment for patients who would otherwise experience relapse of their disease.
Nora Heisterkamp, PhD, and colleagues at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles have discovered that by targeting the B-cell activating receptor (BAFF-R), chemotherapy-resistant precursor B acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells (pre-B ALL) can ...
Older, sicker men with early-stage prostate cancer do not benefit from aggressive treatment
2014-05-13
Treating older men with early-stage prostate cancer who also have other serious underlying health problems with aggressive therapies such as surgery or radiation therapy does not help them live longer and, in fact, can be detrimental, according to a study by UCLA researchers.
The study followed the cases of more than 140,500 men aged 66 and older diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer between 1991 and 2007 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Medicare database. Men who also suffered from multiple major medical conditions such as a history of ...
Study: Former prisoners, parolees turn to emergency departments for care
2014-05-12
AURORA, Colo. (May 12, 2014) – Being released from prison or jail is a difficult time for the millions of Americans returning to their communities from correctional facilities. Add to the list of challenges a high risk of winding up in the emergency department or the hospital. That's according to a new study from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, provides support for efforts to improve access to insurance and readily available health care for this vulnerable group.
"This study comes at a ...
Researchers find new molecule to treat asthma
2014-05-12
La Jolla, Calif., May 12, 2014 -- A new study carried out by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces (Germany), the Free University of Berlin (Germany), UC San Diego, and Shinshu University (Japan) has identified a novel molecule that prevents T-cells from orchestrating asthma brought on by allergens. The findings, published on May 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), show promise for a new potent therapeutic agent to treat asthma, a chronic disease affecting ...
JAX researchers identify potential therapeutic target for wound-healing and cancer
2014-05-12
A Jackson Laboratory research team led by Professor Lenny Shultz, Ph.D., reports that a protein involved in wound healing and tumor growth could be a potential therapeutic target.
In one of nature's mixed blessings, the mechanisms that work to heal cuts and wounds, rebuilding damaged cells, can also go out of control and cause cancer. But understanding those mechanisms could lead to new ways of stimulating healing in wound patients and dialing back cancerous proliferation.
An inactive rhomboid protease, iRhom2, is normally a short-lived protein that controls a cascade ...
Airborne radar surveys and data-based models indicate West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse is underway
2014-05-12
National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers at the University of Washington have concluded that Antarctica's fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, potentially raising sea level by more than a half-a-meter (two feet).
Data gathered by NSF-funded airborne radar, detailed topography maps and computer modeling was used to make the determination.
The glacier acts as an ice dam, stabilizing and regulating movement toward the sea of the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet contains enough ice to cause another 3 to ...
Henry Ford researchers identify genetic factors that may aid survival from brain cancer
2014-05-12
DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital research team has identified specific genes that may lead to improved survival of glioblastoma, the most common and deadly form of cancerous brain tumor.
The molecular data is expected to aid further research into genes that either help or impede the survival of patients diagnosed with the tumor, which can invade and rapidly grow in any part of the human brain.
"Studies such as ours that help define molecular alterations associated with short-term survival likely will help define the reasons why our current treatments don't succeed in these ...