IWC Extinction Alert: vaquita porpoise
Scientific Committee issues first ever extinction alert: grave concern for the survival of the vaquita porpoise “Despite nearly thirty years of repeated warnings, the vaquita hovers on the edge of extinction due to gillnet entanglement.” The plight of the vaquita porpoise has led the Scientific Committee of the IWC to issue its first ever Extinction […]
New e-book assessing approaches to support marine mammals’ bycatch management
A new e-book assessing approaches to support marine mammals’ bycatch management was published by members of the Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group of the Lenfest Ocean Program. Members of the Ocean Modeling Forum’s Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group edited an e-book titled “Assessment Approaches to Support Bycatch Management for Marine Mammals” that was recently published in […]
New factsheet spotlight: Marine Mammal Bycatch best practices
The Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group of the Lenfest Ocean Program has released a new factsheet collating best practices for assessing and managing marine mammal bycatch. Bycatch in marine fisheries is the leading source of human-caused mortality of marine mammals globally. According to the Ocean Modelling Forum Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group, developing quantitative assessments […]
A conservation success story for sea lions
Thanks to a decade long effort by the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) and Humane Society International (HSI), who collaborated with the government, scientists, and fishers, sea lion bycatch in South Australian fisheries has reduced by 98%. Following a report in 2010 showing that a large number of sea lions were killed in gillnets in […]
Webinar: Marine Mammal Bycatch Risk Assessment in Chile
The Lenfest Ocean Program is hosting a webinar on ocean modelling forum’s marine mammal bycatch working group on March 24th 2022. Building off of the Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group’s efforts, a team of researchers is working with managers, scientists, and local fishing communities to assess marine mammal bycatch risk along the coast of Chile. In […]
Webinar: Ocean Modeling Forum’s Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group
The Lenfest Ocean Program is hosting a webinar on ocean modelling forum’s marine mammal bycatch working group on March 10th 2022. Join LENFEST Ocean Program for a round table discussion featuring members of the Working Group sharing their main findings and final products on how to develop and implement assessments of marine mammal bycatch. Experts will […]
Estimating Bycatch Mortality for Marine Mammals
Fisheries bycatch is the greatest current source of human-caused deaths of marine mammals worldwide, with severe impacts on the health and viability of many populations. Recent regulations enacted in the United States under the Fish and Fish Product Import Provisions of its Marine Mammal Protection Act require nations with fisheries exporting fish and fish products […]
Virtual Panel on Best Practices to Estimate Marine Mammal Bycatch
In 2016, NOAA issued a new rule under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) requiring nations with fisheries that export seafood to the U.S. to adhere to bycatch standards comparable to those of the U.S. The Ocean Modeling Forum’s Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) Bycatch Working Group has developed an array of products and […]
Cost-benefit Analysis for Mitigation Measures in Fisheries with High Bycatch
The Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas, (ASCOBANS), released a new report detailing a cost-benefit analysis for mitigation measures in fisheries with high bycatch. Bycatch is a major threat to cetacean conservation and welfare in European waters. The common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) and the harbour porpoise […]
New framework for marine mammal bycatch best practices
Bycatch in marine fisheries is the leading human-caused source of mortality for marine mammals. It has contributed to the decline and in some cases extinction of marine mammal populations and species. There is a growing need for better assessment of marine mammal bycatch in fisheries, which is set to increase even more with the introduction […]
