January 12, 2016 — DURHAM, N.C. – Using real-time management policies to regulate fisheries can reduce the accidental bycatch of juvenile fish and endangered species with substantially less economic impact on fishermen, a new Duke University-led study finds.

The study compared results from six different types of fishery closures commonly used to reduce bycatch.

It found that “dynamic closures” — which typically involve setting smaller portions of the ocean off-limits for shorter periods, based on fine-scale, real-time assessments of changing conditions — are up to three times more efficient at reducing bycatch with lower costs to fishermen than static measures that close large areas and remain in force longer.

“The ecological patterns that create bycatch don’t occur on monthly or 100-square-kilometer-size scales or larger. They occur at much smaller time-space scales,” said Daniel C. Dunn, lead author of the study and a research scientist in the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “Our study provides empirical evidence that if we’re not managing the ocean at these smaller scales there is an inherent inefficiency in the system that costs both fishermen and species alike.”

The study appeared the week of January 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The success of dynamic fisheries management hinges on recent advances “that extend the real-time technology at our fingertips and take it into the ocean,” said Sara M. Maxwell, assistant professor of biological sciences at Old Dominion University, who co-authored the study.

Read the full story at EurekAlert