Final Notes

If your vessel encounters a tagged fish, marine mammal, or sea turtle, please make an effort to recover the tag. In most cases, instructions on where to report recaptures appear on the tag. Generally, the date, location, animal’s length (and sex when it is noticeable) and fishing conditions should be reported. This is valuable data used in fisheries management decisions, stock assessments, and other biological research.

These bycatch mitigation and handling guidelines were developed with the input of scientists, skippers, crew, and fisheries managers. However best practices are always evolving, and if new information becomes available, ISSF will update this guidance. Also, if your experience as a skipper suggests alternative methods of successful bycatch mitigation and handling, we are always eager to test such techniques during our research cruises. There will be a place to share such information at the end of this module, and ISSF encourages you to do so.