Abstract
Drawing on personal experience of industry-led research in the South-west of the UK, this chapter takes you on a journey through what it can take for industry-led research to make a difference to the sustainable management of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays) considered to be of conservation concern. Throughout this journey, the research design, implementation and resulting analysis are a collaborative effort between scientists and fishermen. Between 2009 and 2011, three species of elasmobranch in the North-east Atlantic, spurdog (Squalus acanthias), common skate (Dipturus batis ‘complex’) and porbeagle (Lamna nasus), went from being perceived as a valuable, commercially fished quota species (limits on the amount of fish that can be landed for sale by fishermen) to being a conservation species with either a zero total allowable catch (TAC) or with a prohibited species listing. Due to the large sizes and aggregative nature of these shark species, by-catch and discard issues emerged in the offshore commercial net fisheries of the Celtic Sea where there were no previous issues. The resulting high rates of by-catch and discards of what are now considered conservation species had a follow-on negative financial impact on the fishing industry. United through the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (CFPO), fishermen from the South-west of the UK together with the Shark Trust (an environmental non-government organisation (eNGO)) raised awareness with the UK Government of the need to generate the evidence base required to help find a solution for effective management and conservation of spurdog, common skate and porbeagle. Here we highlight two industry by-catch and biological data collection projects that have explored what is needed to create effective engagement and problem-solving by Government scientists, fishermen and their representatives, Government policy advisors and an eNGO. This experience provides a road-map for current best practice and methods for scientists to collaboratively work with the fishing industry to collect by-catch data and biological information on data-deficient species of conservation concern. It serves as an example of how industry-led research can generate scientifically robust data to feed into policy and influence management.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for their support and funding of the work. We sincerely thank Jamie Rendell (Defra), Kirsty McGregor (Defra) and Carl O’Brien (Cefas) for their professional representation of the Spurdog Programme to the European Commission and overall support of the Spurdog Programme. We are very grateful to and thank Ali Hood of the Shark Trust for her balanced critique and robust defence of the Shark Trust’s position and for her support of working with the fishing industry. We thank all the fishermen who participated and engaged in the research projects, especially John Walsh of the fishing vessel Charisma, Phillip Mitchell of the fishing vessel Govenek of Ladram and Alan Dwan of the fishing vessel Ajax. We thank Barrie Deas and Dale Rodmell of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) for their involvement in taking the Spurdog Programme to a national and international audience during consultation. Our appreciation and thanks go to Dr. Steven Mackinson, Dr. Ewan Hunter and Joana Barker for their detailed editorial review and contributions to improving this chapter. Finally, to Paul Trebilcock of the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (CFPO) who was instrumental in the positive direction and outcomes of the engagement events, with Paul seeing this process through from the very beginning, highlighting the issue to Government, navigating science, policy, conservation and fisheries, keeping fishermen engaged.
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Hetherington, S.J., Bendall, V.A. (2020). People, Sharks and Science. In: Holm, P., Hadjimichael, M., Linke, S., Mackinson, S. (eds) Collaborative Research in Fisheries. MARE Publication Series, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26784-1_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26784-1_16
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