Report on incidental bycatches in Dutch pelagic fishery - 2019

Samenvatting

This report contains the results of the on-going monitoring programme on the incidental bycatch of cetaceans in Dutch pelagic fisheries in 2019. EU Council Regulation 1241/2019 requires observer coverage in ICES areas VI, VII and VIII in the period 1 December – 31 March (fleet segment NLD003) and outside this area in all areas year round (fleet segment NLD004). The same obligations were laid down in EU Regulation 812/2004 which has been repealed. Unlike the 812/2004 Regulation the new Regulation (1241/2019) does not require reporting in a prescribed format. In advance of a future agreed reporting format, which should also involve incidental bycatch recorded in other fisheries sampled under the DCF, the monitoring efforts under Regulation 1241/2019 are reported in the format as prescribed by the former 812/2004 Regulation. In 2019, during 9 fishing trips, 43 days and 83 hauls were observed in fleet segment NLD003, and 111 days and 273 hauls were observed in fleet segment NLD004. With a total number of fleet days of 390 in fleet segment NLD003 and 694 in fleet segment NLD004, the coverage was 11.0% and 16.0% respectively. Thus the target of the Pilot Monitoring Scheme (PMS) of 10% for NLD003 and 5% for NLD004 has been fulfilled. In addition to these trips, three observer trips were carried out on board of two British flagged trawlers which makes the total number of monitored trips by the Netherlands twelve. The observer effort on board the British flagged trawlers consisted of 52 days (101 hauls), covering 25% of the total Dutch monitoring effort. The data collected during the trips onboard foreign flagged vessels will be made available to the ICES database on incidental bycatch. The observed bycatch rate of 0.00 dolphins per day in the pelagic fishery in 2019 is in line with the findings in 2006 - 2018 when the observed bycatch rate was 0.00-0.01 dolphins per day. In addition to cetaceans, this report includes information on incidental bycatches of mega fauna species listed in Table 1D of EU Decision 2016/1251. Seven grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) were caught in seven incidents; nine porbeagles (Lamna nasus) were caught in eight incidents. This report also present the results of 5 monitoring day trips in set gill nets fishery. No incidental bycatch incidents of mega fauna, rare fish or bird were recorded during these trips. Since January 2017 the monitoring of all protected species is implemented in the new Data Collection Framework (DCF). The national data on bycatch is provided in a yearly data call from ICES WGBYC including data on bycatch of cetaceans presented in this report.