Fishing gear associated with global marine catches: II. Trends in trawling and dredging

Abstract

A new method for associating global marine catch statistics with fishing gears has allowed the creation of maps which detail the changing use of fishing gears such as trawls and dredges from the 1950s to the present. These gears, often associated with high impacts on benthic communities, are associated with a wide range of demersal fish, molluscan and crustacean catch. The use of these gears has increased globally since the 1950s when it accounted for more than 40% of reported catches to a peak in most areas such as North America and Europe in the 1980s. This increase extended into the 1990s along the coast of Argentina particularly for squid. Dredging, usually associated with the catch of bivalves, often peaked later than trawling but had begun to decline in most areas by the 1990s.