ICES Guidelines on Methods for Estimating Discard Survival

Abstract

On the 1st of January 2014, the European Union introduced a phased discard ban or “Landing Obligation” for regulated species, as part of Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Basic Regulation (Article 15). Today, in the post-Landing Obligation world, it may appear that a report on discard survival has little relevance. However, the Landing Obligation policy includes a high survival exemption (HSE) for “species for which scientific evidence demonstrates high survival rates, taking into account the characteristics of the gear, of the fishing practices and of the ecosystem” (Article 14, paragraph 4b). The HSE generated considerable interest from stakeholders, who wished to demonstrate that their particular fisheries did in fact have a suitably high survival rate for discarded unwanted catch.