| The marine mammals catch rate of pelagic trawling in the North-east Atlantic has not previously been assessed by direct observation. A study was funded by the European Commission to collect information on the catches of fish and mammals by several pelagic trawl fisheries from England, France, Ireland and Netherlands. This paper presents a summary of the results, as far as the by catch of marine mammals is concerned, between 1994-1995. It was not possible to carry out observations of all the pelagic trawl fisheries but a total of eleven fisheries were investigated in this study. In one fishery (Irish herring (Thunnus) trawling), four grey seals (Phoca vitulina) were caught in separate trawls during slightly more than 100 hours trawling. Cetaceans (dolphins)... |
