Definition of bycatch
: the portion of a commercial fishing catch that consists of marine animals caught unintentionally
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Recent Examples of bycatch from the Web
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Farming shrimp also helps with the wild shrimping 80 percent bycatch rate.
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The 81 million pounds caught each year mostly as bycatch in trawl fisheries could provide more protein to the pet food, aquaculture and livestock feed markets.
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As many as one hundred million sharks are killed each year, much of it in the form of bycatch in an attempt to catch other forms of seafood but also for shark’s fin soup, a delicacy in China.
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Vaquitas are small porpoises which must surface to breathe, and end up as bycatch, drowning as they get ensnared the large-net gillnets set for totoabas.
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That left important feeding and migration areas for sharks, rays, whales, and other species in the path of fishermen—who either target the species, often illegally, or catch them accidentally as bycatch.
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Threats to sea turtles are largely human-related: habitat destruction, overharvesting females and eggs on nesting beaches, accidental bycatch, and increased predation of hatchlings and eggs by animals, like dogs and rats, introduced by humans.
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The turtles often died after being caught as bycatch by fishing trawlers or after getting tangled in fishing gear.
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But the return of commercial fishers—especially long-line tuna boats—outside the 12-mile zone is bad enough, says Richmond, who predicts a heavy toll on sharks as well as tunas, as the bycatch rate is one shark for every two tunas.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bycatch.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of bycatch
1974
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