Lanternfishes (Myctophids): by-catch of deepsea shrimp trawlers operated off Kollam, south-west coast of India

Abstract

By-catch and discards have received a great deal of scientific attention, their minimisation being a goal of marine fisheries management (Powers, 2006). The Nordic workshop (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2003) defined by-catch as “the proportion of the catch which is taken on the board, or brought to the surface by the vessel and which is subsequently thrown back to sea, dead or dying or likely to die”. Most of the earlier studies deal with optimisation of fishing efficiency and minimisation of fishing impact, but by-catch and discards data have rarely been used to learn about the distribution, abundance and biology of the incidental species being caught, although several recent studies have indicated the informative value of by-catch concerning food habits (Koen Alonso et al., 2001), feeding ecology (Rheeder and Sauer, 1998) and recruitment indices (Payne et al., 2005).