Deep-water fisheries are relatively new but they have had a significant impact, with commercial species harvested ‘outside safe biological limits’ and some species regarded as critically endangered. The long term future of these fisheries, and the communities that depend on them for economic and social stability, looks bleak.

An ‘ecosystem approach’ to fisheries management has been called for globally, but how do you do it? Modelling predator-prey-environmental-fisheries interactions is one way. By constructing a foodweb model, with fisheries as top predator one can identify the impacts of changes in fishing effort or catch on other species.

One technique used for modelling multiple species fisheries (Ecopath with Ecosim) has been employed on the oldest deepwater fishery in the world: the Rockall Trough, which is one of the most well studied deep-sea regions in the world with datasets starting prior to the fishery.

Best estimates of the changes that took place over the past 40 years in this foodweb show a declining trend in most species since the onset of fishing but newly lowered TACs should lead to recovery of some species, while others will need further intervention.

Mixed impacts in fisheries have caused many an unexpected result from brute force management, which we modelled here: The hypothetical removal of the blue whiting fishery from 2007 to 2020 will increase blue whiting in the model, impacting species that compete with them for food (roundnose grenadier), and benefiting those species that prey on blue whiting (blue ling).

This project has demonstrated that a more holistic approach can reveal more about the complex fisheries interactions that would not be apparent through more traditional approaches to fisheries management. Ecosystem modelling, while not the single answer to deep-water fisheries management, certainly needs to be included in the tool kit available to fisheries managers.

See report here.

Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network Taggathon

On a wet and windy weekend over 100 anglers, including students and scientists from SAMS (the Scottish Association for Marine Science) and SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage), gathered on the shores of Loch Sunart and Etive to take part in ?Tagathon 2009? - a fun event with a serious purpose; to record numbers of all shark species caught during the event.

Thanks to the efforts of the anglers who took part from boats, kayaks and the shore, over 65 spurdog, common skate and thornback rays were conventionally tagged whilst a number of data storage tags were also deployed in order to gain some more comprehensive data of the spurdogs preferred habitat by recording depth and temperature.

Why the focus on common skate and spurdog ?
Their ancestors evolved over 400 million years ago and were once present all around the Scottish coastline; sadly both are now classed as critically endangered by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Why Loch?s Sunart and Etive?
Anecdotal evidence suggests the presence of a resident populations of the species which use the Lochs as breeding grounds for the species.

The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network (www.ssacn.org) through their Scottish Shark Tagging Programme (www.tagsharks.com) and tagging events such as Tagathon and Sharkatag are trying to provide essential data on which the Scottish government can act and establish conservation measures to ensure the survival of sharks, skates and rays in Scottish waters for now and the future.

Looking behind the labels

"It is a paradox that on any set of indices, fishing, although certainly not without its environmental consequences, has a much lower environmental impact than any other form of food production. It is important that this is understood not as an excuse for doing nothing but to introduce a sense of proportion into what has often been a one-sided debate".

This quotation is taken from a draft paper of the North Western Waters Regional Advisory Committee which will shortly be submitted to the European Commission, entitled "Advice on the Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy". Regardless of whether this comment can be justified or not, it flags an issue that I have heard raised over and over in conversations with fishing industry representatives and fishermen themselves - that they are now labelled by many as plunderers of the ocean, whereas previously they were seen, and appreciated, as providers of food. It is the attachment of labels to people and groups of people that interests me, and the reactions that such labelling provokes. For example, tarring the fishing industry with the brush of plunderer encourages the industry in turn to label the labellers as "anti-fishing". And from there, the debate can so easily spiral out of proportion, another point raised in the quotation above. The question is whether, and how, it is possible for the relevant parties to look behind the labels, those applied to them and those that they have applied to others, sometimes unwittingly.

The Reef Tank interview

Recently I was interviewed by the The Reef Tank, a great blog that covers many issues of relevance to marine science and conservation.

We discussed many issues concerning marine policy: governance reform in Scotland and the UK, ecolabelling in fisheries, the Arctic and the 'big questions' facing marine policy and governance.

An important point was the fact we need to get marine issues into the public consciousness - not just the usual suspects or those making a living from, or living in proximity to the sea.

For the interview and other posts covering diverse marine topics:

http://www.thereeftank.com/blog/