More than 30 fishermen, scientists, conservationists and government officials recently met in Newlyn, England, to discuss shark and skate bycatch and discards.
The meeting provided a constructive forum for fishing industry representatives, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Marine Management Organization (MMO) and the Shark Trust, to discuss the issues surrounding bycatch, discarding and the current scientific understanding of porbeagle, spurdog, common skate and undulate ray.
As part of ongoing Defra-funded research on commercially important elasmobranchs of conservation interest, Cefas’ Jim Ellis and Defra policy officials provided details of the most recent ICES advice and current fisheries policy on these species.
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