NOAA Fisheries is asking fishermen and seafood industry representatives to weigh in on methods to reduce unwanted encounters with marine mammals that interfere with fishing operations by getting too close to vessels, gear, harbors, docks and other infrastructure.
The agency’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee said its anonymous survey will help officials understand the scope and use of “marine mammal deterrents” by industry to prevent “dolphins, whales, seals, and sea lions eating fish from hooks and nets and damaging fishing gear and harbor infrastructure, which leads to economic losses.”
The online survey will gather “knowledge and perceptions about the nature of marine mammal interactions and use of deterrents currently employed by aquaculture farmers, commercial, recreational, and tribal fishermen, and property owners,” the agency said in a news release.
Calls and emails to several fishing and seafood trade groups were not immediately returned. But the agency could get an earful from industry representatives who have long chafed at what they perceive as a growing problem made worse by agency efforts to protect marine mammals rather than deter them from interfering in fisheries.
