Understanding the scale, impact and potential mitigation of marine animal entanglement in the Scottish static gear fishery

海洋动物被渔具缠绕是一个严重的问题，国际捕鲸委员会认为这是我们这个时代最重要的海洋哺乳动物福利问题。在苏格兰的沃茨，渔具（特别是静止的筒子架渔具）缠绕是须鲸非自然死亡的最大原因，根据苏格兰海洋动物搁浅计划（SMASS）在过去20年中收集的数据，受影响物种的发生率，比率和范围正在增加。纠缠具有保护、福利、经济、政治和人类安全方面的影响，但由于渔民对事件的报告不足，以及尸体上岸或可取回进行尸检的可能性很低，因此对影响的全面科学了解缺乏数据。苏格兰近海筒子架渔业为许多脆弱的苏格兰沿海社区做出了重要的经济，社会和文化贡献，雇用了约2，400名渔民（整个价值链约3，300人），每年为苏格兰经济创造约1.02亿英镑的总价值。人们普遍认为，筒子架是一种非常有选择性和对环境无害的捕鱼方法，由小型（<10米）船只进行，对海底的副渔获物或影响最小。然而，目前在苏格兰沃茨部署的筒子架的数量没有限制，并且关于使用中的数量的数据很少，但行业共识是筒子架的数量在过去十年中急剧增加。因此，在任何给定的时间里，在水中部署数千英里的相关绳索，缠绕可能发生，并且确实发生。在苏格兰的纠缠研究中仍然存在许多重要的知识空白。例如，筒子架捕鱼努力量与海洋动物缠绕的发生率、季节性、严重程度或结果之间的关联尚不清楚。关于使用中或废弃渔具数量或相关绳索数量、渔具冗余或渔具丢失率的信息很少。主要利益攸关方认为目前缺乏关于监测的立法（例如第812/2004号条例），随着苏格兰领导的联合王国海豚和鼠海豚保护战略的制定以及目前正在协商的四个拟议的移动的物种海洋保护区的制定，进一步研究以更好地了解和减轻海洋动物纠缠是及时的。该项目将在苏格兰近海渔业综合数据系统项目和苏格兰纠缠联盟项目完成的工作基础上开展。它将采取跨学科的方法，将苏格兰近海渔业数据收集的新兴技术能力与行为科学方法结合起来，以了解和减轻苏格兰海洋动物纠缠的发生率。初步工作模拟渔民的决策方面的选择“不捕鱼”（SIFIDS）表明，了解行为和态度因素是了解努力的信息，并为决策者，监管机构和行业的未来决策支持工具的关键。因此，将收集和结合定量证据，以支持我们对静态渔具中海洋动物缠绕的影响和风险因素的理解，以及促进渔民报告缠绕事件的行为知情的循证干预措施，以提供新颖且可能非常有效的渔业共同管理方法，以尽量减少苏格兰沃茨海洋缠绕的负面影响。这方面的关键是与渔民进行有意义的接触，他们的专业知识和对工作环境的了解对于制定可行的缓解措施至关重要。

Marine animal entanglement in fishing gear is a serious concern, considered by the International Whaling Commission to be the most significant marine mammal welfare issue of our time. In Scottish waters entanglement in fishing gear (static creel gear in particular) is the largest identified cause of non-natural mortality in baleen whales, and based on data collected by the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) over the past 20 years, the incidence, rate and range of species impacted are increasing. Entanglements have conservation, welfare, economic, political and human safety implications, but a thorough scientific understanding of impact is data deficient due to underreporting of events by fishermen and the low likelihood of carcases making landfall or being retrievable for post-mortem examination. The Scottish inshore creel fishery makes an important economic, social and cultural contribution to many fragile Scottish coastal communities, employing ~2,400 fishers (~3,300 across the value chain) and generating a total value to the Scottish economy of ~£102m per year. Creels are widely considered to be a very selective and environmentally benign method of fishing, conducted by small (<10m) vessels with minimal bycatch or impact on the seabed. However currently there is no limit on the number of creels deployed in Scottish waters and scant data on the number in use, but industry consensus is that creel numbers have increased dramatically over the last decade. Therefore with thousands of miles of associated rope deployed in the water at any given time, entanglements can, and do, occur. There are still many important knowledge gaps in entanglement research in Scotland. For example, the association between creel fishing effort and the incidence, seasonality, severity or outcome of marine animal entanglements is unknown. Little information is available on the amount of active or derelict fishing gear or the amount of associated rope, gear redundancy or rates of gear loss. Current legislation regarding monitoring is considered by key stakeholders to be lacking (e.g. Regulation 812/2004) and with the development of the Scottish-led UK Dolphin and Porpoise Conservation Strategy and four proposed Marine Protected Areas for mobile species currently under consultation, further research to better understand and mitigate marine animal entanglements is timely. This project will build on work completed through the Scottish Inshore Fisheries Integrated Data System (SIFIDS) project and the Scottish Entanglement Alliance (SEA) project. It will take a transdisciplinary approach, combining emerging technological capacity in data collection from Scotland's inshore fisheries, with behavioural science methodologies into fisher's attitudes and motivations, in order to understand and mitigate the incidence of marine animal entanglements in Scotland. Preliminary work modelling fisher's decision making with respect to the choice "not to fish" (SIFIDS) showed that understanding behavioural and attitudinal factors was informative for understanding effort, and key to future decision support tools for policy makers, regulators and industry. Therefore quantitative evidence to underpin our understanding of the impacts of, and risk factors for, marine animal entanglement in static fishing gears, and behaviourally-informed, evidence-based intervention to promote fishers' reporting of entanglement events will be gathered and combined to offer novel and potentially very effective approach to fisheries co-management to minimise the negative consequences of marine entanglement in Scottish waters. Key to this is meaningful engagement with fishers, whose expertise and understanding of the environment in which they work is essential to shape workable mitigation measures.