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SC/69A/HIM/06
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Resource ID
20010
Access
Open
Document Number
SC/69A/HIM/06
Full Title
Collaboration on whale incidental mortality in the Antarctic krill fishery
Author
Steve Parker, Isaac Forster, Russell Leaper And Nat Kelly
Authors Summary
[SC/69A/HIM/xx] provides a description of the collaboration between CCAMLR (specifically, SC-CAMLR’s Working Group on Incidental Mortality Associated with Fishing; WG-IMAF) and the IWC-SC intersessional group on whale entanglement in Southern Ocean krill fishery. In response to a report of the incidental mortality of three juvenile humpback whales in the Antarctic krill trawl fishery in Subareas 48.1 and 48.2 during the 2021 calendar year, SC-CAMLR approached IWC-SC to help better understand potential reasons for these bycatch events and to avoid them in the future, with a specific request to provide scientific feedback on these circumstances associated with these incidents and to nominate scientists to attend the WG-IMAF meeting (Welsford et al 2022).
To facilitate scientific feedback, an IWC-SC intersessional group on whale entanglement/entrapment in the krill fishery was formed, and subsequently developed a report detailing advice on a range of topics, from data collection needs when whale entrapments occur through to several recommendations regarding mitigation, including avoidance of whales by fishing vessels, technologies such as excluder devices, and management measures such as ‘move-on’ rules (Leaper et al. 2022). This report was reviewed by WG-IMAF which requested further assistance from IWC-SC, in particular for refining additional data to be collected by observers and crew when whale entrapments occur and, in the longer term, provision of advice for krill trawling operators to minimise whale entrapments (including development of technology to study how whales are interacting with krill trawling nets, move-on rules, etc), and on refining designs of the marine mammal exclusion device, considering a convex shape to the exclusion mesh to deflect whales (and seals) away from the net mouth.
Publisher
IWC
Publication Year
2023