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Article: Fishing: what we don't keep. (research indicates that 15% of groundfish caught off the coast of Alaska are thrown back; new laws may help limit the damage this does to fish populations)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- December 16, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As any angler knows, fish thrown back-because they're too small, the wrong type, or hunted only for sport-often don't survive. Because of the trauma they undergo when they are hauled in the net and taken out of the water for sorting, virtually all fish that commercial trawlers throw back are dead by the time they hit the water. This by-catch can be staggering, a new study illustrates.
In work done for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), Larry Cotter of Pacific Associates in Juneau sieved through an ocean of 1994 data for groundfish harvested commercially in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) ...