18 December 2024: The report of the Scientific Committee Working Group on By-catch is now available!

The NAMMCO Scientific Committee Working Group on By-Catch convened in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland, from 29 to 31 October 2024. The meeting, chaired by Kimberly Murray (NOAA, USA), focused on analysing fishing effort data provided by the NAMMCO member countries to assess marine mammal exposure to by-catch risks. The group examined the  datasets for consistency, identified gaps, and developed preliminary methods for identifying locations where fishing gear poses high by-catch risk .

This meeting marked an important step in refining the Working Group’s approach, including assigning risk scores to different fishing gear types and combining fishing effort with marine mammal density data to flag areas with the highest by-catch potential.

You can access the full report on the NAMMCO website report library.