In September 2024 we started a series of technical webinars with CIBBRiNA and Marine Beacon, two sister European funded projects also focused on the study and mitigation of bycatch of ETP species of marine megafauna. The projects partners recognises that the incidental capture of ETP megafauna species is a complex challenge and so, they agreed establishing collaboration to optimize efforts to address the research perspective and create synergies among researchers and other stakeholders involved. Therefore, monthly webinars were delivered alternating presentations from partners involved in the projects.
While REDUCE has its operating area in the East Central Atlantic Ocean (ECAO) where European industrial fleets are also operating, CIBBRiNA and Marine Beacon concentrate their efforts on the European Seas (North-East Atlantic, Baltic and Mediterranean seas).
The three projects aim to generate knowledge and promote sustainable fisheries management and reduce bycatch of the marine megafauna interacting whit the different European fleets across several regional seas. With that aim in mind, the projects are first addressing research activities to generate/update scientific knowledge on the issue and then will trial and pilot mitigation measures to generate practical recommendations to guarantee further implementation.
A quick recap of the webinars released from September 2024 to June 2025 shows the variety and scope of the topics and approaches being implementedf by a diverse and wide research community associated to these projects:
“Unravelling seabird-fishery dynamics in West African waters through bird-borne technologies”. Leia Navarro Herrero (University of Barcelona)
“Toward Fully Automated Intelligent Fishing: can we achieve precision fishing and eliminate bycatch in trawl fisheries?”. Robin Faillettaz (IFREMER).
“Encouraging Voluntary Uptake of Selective Fishing Gear: Insights from the Dutch Demersal Fishery”. Nathalie Steins and Marloes Kraan (Wageningen Marine Research).
“Community structure and hotspots of endangered species bycatch in the tropical tuna purse seine fishery in the Atlantic Ocean”. David Kaplan and Clara Lerebourg (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement.)
“First exploratory vulnerability assessment of data-poor deep-sea sharks in the Azores”. Nicolás Collazo Jiménez (Universidade dos Açores).
“Development of a Control Rule for the Bycatch of Common Dolphin in the Bay of Biscay Based on a Stochastic Surplus Production Model”. Matthieu Authier (Research Engineer from the Delmoges Project).
“Seabird bycatch – hopeful solutions meet a grim reality”. Ross Wanless (University of Barcelona).
“Sensitivity analysis of fish species in the Northeast Atlantic”. Bríd O’Connor (Marine Institute).
“A practical framework to evaluate the feasibility of incentive-based approaches to reduce bycatch of marine mammals and other protected species”. Benjamin Dudouet (University of Santiago de Compostela).
“AI-powered species recognition in French tropical tuna fisheries using observers’ image data”. Lucy Arnaud (Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement)
All partners of the three projects agree that the “Joint webinars on fisheries bycatch” has been a sucessful collaborative measure and, thus, it will be back in September 2025 with new conferences and researchers.
