Working Group on Bycatch of Protected Species (WGBYC)

The Working Group on Bycatch of Protected Species (WGBYC) was established in 2007 and collates and analyses information from across the Northeast Atlantic and adjacent sea areas (Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black Seas) related to the bycatch in commercial fishing operations of protected and sensitive species including marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, and sensitive fish species.

WGBYC seeks to describe and improve understanding of the likely impacts of fishing activities on affected populations, to inform on the suitability of existing at-sea monitoring programmes for assessing sensitive species bycatch, and to collate information on bycatch mitigation efforts.

The report provides an overview of data collection activities during 2023 including details of reported monitoring and fishing effort data, and bycatch records that were submitted to the WGBYC database in 2024 following a formal data call (ToR A). Data were requested from 17 of the 20 ICES countries, six EU Mediterranean countries and two EU Black Sea countries. 23 of the 25 contacted countries submitted data. WGBYC considers that the quantity and quality of the information provided by the ICES WGBYC datacall have been steadily improving since the first data call in 2018 (ToR A and ToR G).

WGBYC conducted a literature review on mitigation solutions for ETP species published in 2023 and summarised information about ongoing projects to mitigate bycatch of ETP species within the group. Furthermore, all WGFTFB national reports were reviewed and relevant projects were summarised (ToR B).

WGBYC further expanded the BEAM approach which was first developed in 2022 and is designed for evaluating and quantitatively assessing population impacts of bycatch across the full range of relevant taxa (ToR C). The method considers various criteria, including data availability, quality, and representativity, within group expertise and the existence of bycatch management/conservation thresholds or reference points. Estimated bycatch mortality ranges, by ecoregion and gear type, were produced for several mammal, seabird, turtle, and fish species listed on the EU priority species list and the ICES Roadmap for Bycatch Advice ecoregion species lists. This year, WGBYC was able to provide total bycatch estimate at the ecoregion scale for more species, however, population impact assessments continue to be limited by a lack of species abundance estimates at the ecoregion scale and Bycatch Reference Points.

The semi-quantitative methodology for evaluating bycatch risk for high priority data limited species was further developed in 2024. This methodology is for species for which reliable quantitative assessments cannot currently be carried out using the BEAM approach (ToR D). WGBYC made recommendations on how to further progress the development of the methodology.

A risk-based approach to highlight potential monitoring gaps and inform coordinated sampling designs was further expanded to include all ecoregions, including the Mediterranean, and provides useful insights into which métiers may currently be under-sampled by existing at-sea data collection programmes with respect to PET species bycatch (ToR E).

A new ToR (ToR F) was established for WGBYC in 2024 to examine data deficient species and to propose measures to obtain the required information to improve the data situation in these cases. This work highlighted the barriers to achieving BPUE and total bycatch estimates and identified where clarification on data collections protocols and improved data reporting would be beneficial.