Gap analysis on the monitoring of marine bird bycatch by British vessels: report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

In 2022, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published their Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative (BMI), which included an objective to improve the evidence base of bycatch of sensitive marine species. To support this objective, JNCC undertook a gap analysis to assess if there are significant monitoring gaps in existing at-sea data collection programmes which might impact the accuracy of marine bird bycatch estimates.

Monitoring data from three different data collection programmes (UK Bycatch Monitoring Programme, Commercial Catch Sampling Programme for Scottish vessels and the Commercial Catch Sampling Programme in England and Wales) were collated and merged in one database, covering all monitoring data from 2010 to 2019. The main purpose of the Bycatch Monitoring Programme is to collect data on sensitive species bycatch (wider than just seabirds), while the Commercial Catch Sampling Programmes have the main purpose to monitor fishery discards.