Line of action:

Status:

Execution date:

General:

Contribute to the protection of marine biodiversity and the sustainability of fisheries by reducing cetacean by-catches, in collaboration with the fisheries sector.

Specific:

1. To know the cetacean-fishing interaction and the fishing effort that is applied in the RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas, as a first measure to be able to evaluate the negative effects (accidental catches) of fishing activity on the marine environment.

2. To evaluate the magnitude of the impact of mortality due to accidental capture in fishing gear on the population of porpoises and bottlenose dolphins in RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas.

3. To increase the available technical information and enhance social knowledge of the population status of porpoises and bottlenose dolphins in the main fishing areas of the RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas.

4. To contribute to the awareness of the fishing sector and society as a whole of the serious threat posed by accidental captures of cetaceans to their conservation, especially in the case of porpoises.

The following secondary objectives are established:

1) To know the cetacean-fishing interaction and the fishing effort that is applied in the Natura 2000 Network areas of the Rías Baixas, as a first measure to be able to evaluate the negative effects (accidental catches) of fishing activity on the marine environment.

2) To assess the magnitude of the impact of mortality due to accidental capture in fishing gear on the population of porpoises and bottlenose dolphins in Natura 2000 Network areas of the Rías Baixas.

3) To promote knowledge of the population status of porpoises and bottlenose dolphins in the main fishing areas of the Natura 2000 Network areas of the Rías Baixas.

The actions and activities that will be carried out within the VIRADA project are the following:

A1. Collection of basic information on the fishing activity of the small gear fleet in RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas.

Within this activity, embarkations will be made on board fishing boats of the small gear fleet based in the ports of Baiona, Vigo, Cangas, Bueu and O Grove. In addition, this action will be completed with interviews with the small gear fleet of the Cabo Silleiro – Cabo Corrubedo area.

A2. Impact assessment: marking-recapture study of cetacean carcasses accidentally caught in fishing gear in RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas.

Tags will be used to mark the carcasses of cetaceans caught accidentally and the Galician Stranding Network will recapture tagged carcasses that have washed up on the coast.

An analysis will also be carried out to evaluate the possibilities of applying a computer tool for the collection of data on accidental catches and sightings of cetaceans from the fishing sector.

A3. Maritime campaign for the population monitoring of cetaceans in RN2000 areas of the Rías Baixas, with the participation of volunteers.

An 8-day cetacean population monitoring campaign will be carried out, on board a sailboat, with the participation of 10 people as environmental volunteers. Prior to carrying out the campaign, the volunteers will receive the necessary technical training.

A4. Dissemination, dissemination and awareness of the sustainability of fishing and the need to reduce by-catch.

Within this action, the edition and distribution of a “Guide to good practices for the fishing sector in the event of an accidental catch on board” is planned. An awareness-raising video will also be made, dissemination materials will be published and a day of presentation of results will be held.

To compile the basic information on the fishing activity of the small gear fleet in Natura 2000 Network areas of the Rías Baixas, 26 embarkations were carried out on board fishing boats and 12 whale sightings were recorded. Likewise, 184 fishing sets were sampled (with miños, betas, volantillas, trammel nets and volantas), registering the capture of 44 species, most of them of commercial interest. In 4.8% of the hauls, the capture of waste was recorded.

During the first phase of the project, 133 interviews were conducted with professionals in the fishing sector – 60.9% of them fishing patterns. These are some of the data obtained:

• Regarding cetaceans, 100% of the interviewees indicated that it is common to observe them during fishing days, but only 38.3% correctly identified the different species, the best known being the bottlenose dolphin.
• They also stated that the time of year when they make the most whale sightings is summer.
• 57.9% of sailors indicated that the number of cetaceans had increased over the past five years.
• More than half of the sailors (58.8%) indicated that they considered cetaceans to be a harmful element for their activity (mainly due to damage and breaks in the nets and to scare away fishing). 33.9% considered them indifferent, and only 7.3% responded that they considered them beneficial (they keep company, indicate the presence of fishing).
• As for accidental catches, 42.1% stated that they had registered dead cetaceans in their fishing nets, most with the use of minks.
• Finally, in terms of their perception of fishing activity, 84.2% of seafarers indicated that fishing was not causing any damage to the marine environment. And in relation to cetaceans, 82.7% considered that fishing did not represent any type of threat to their conservation.

To evaluate the impact, a technical proposal for action was developed, to be executed in future projects. It is considered that the first step that should be carried out would be the creation of a dedicated platform for the entry, storage and processing of data on by-catch and sightings of cetaceans from the fishing sector.

In addition, tags were edited and distributed for the marking of the carcasses of cetaceans accidentally caught by the fishing sector. The Galician Stranding Network did not record any recapture of captured and tagged cetacean carcasses during the project implementation period. It is known that a specimen of common dolphin has been tagged by a collaborating vessel. During the period between January 2020 and March 2021, the results of the stranding analyses examined by the Galician Stranding Network indicate that the mortality rate of cetaceans due to accidental capture in fishing gear was 46.4%, with a value of 43.8% in the case of porpoises and 50.0% in bottlenose dolphins.

In addition, an aerial campaign was developed for the population monitoring of cetaceans, with two sampling flights that covered a total of 589 km. 93 sightings of six species of cetaceans were recorded. The bottlenose dolphin was the species that reached the highest number of records, with 38.7% of the total sightings. It was the species that presented a more continuous and uniform distribution throughout the study area, with presence both inside the estuaries and in the waters outside the shelf. The common dolphin ranked second in terms of the number of records, 24.7% of the 93 total sightings. All their sightings were distributed in the western part of the study area, to the west of the position occupied by the archipelagos of Cíes, Ons and Sálvora. One of the most interesting results refers to the overlap between cetacean sightings, Natura 2000 Network areas and fishing grounds, so that the highest level of potential interaction, with a degree of 55%, is established between the common dolphin and the fishing grounds in the Natura 2000 Network area.

Finally, the project included several dissemination and awareness-raising actions on the entity’s website and social networks on the sustainability of fishing and the need to reduce bycatch. Likewise, several articles were published in specialized media (Pesca Internacional, Europa Azul, Mar, CERNA, Quercus, Industrias Pesqueras, Ruta Pesquera & Naval, Revista alimentaria and Boletín Pesca de Rías) and general media. These dissemination actions were complemented with the production of two dissemination videos, available on the entity’s YouTube channel and with the preparation of a guide to good practices in the fishing sector in the event of an accidental catch on board, which was distributed throughout the study area. between the target fleet and the entities linked to the fishing activity. Finally, an end-of-project day was organized, in which its development and the results obtained were explained, with a hundred participants.