We share the article on the statistics of fish catch by method published by OurWorldData.
Taking into account the fishing methods mentioned in the article OurWorldData: Fishing Methods In The Ocean, such as long line, rod and line, gillnet, seine net, traps or pots, dredging or bottom trawling , pelagic trawling, demersal or bottom trawling. We can determine how many fish we catch with each method.
This data is sourced from the Sea Around Us database published by Pauly, Zeller and Palomares, available at: http://www.seaaroundus.org/.
In the graphs here, we see the breakdown of the global catch of wild fish by the type of fishing gear used. These data come from the Sea Around Us database, published by Daniel Pauly, Dirk Zeller and Maria Palomares.4
Globally, bottom trawling is the most common method, accounting for a quarter of the fish catch. Pelagic (midwater) trawling represents an additional 10%. This means that all types of trawls account for just over a third of the global fish catch. The purse seine is the second most common method and accounts for just over 20% of the catch.
Gillnets and longlines account for a much smaller amount of the global fish catch. This is partly due to the fact that they achieve less catch per landing than methods such as trawling or purse seine fishing.
It is interesting to see how common the methods are in different countries. You can explore this data for any country by using the + Change Country button on the interactive charts. We see, for example, that bottom trawling is the dominant method used in China and India. It has been growing rapidly in recent years.
By contrast, bottom trawling is becoming less common across Europe. In many countries, such as the UK, Spain and Portugal, bottom trawling was intense during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but has since declined significantly. That has been driven in part by efforts to reduce overfishing and allow fish stocks to recover. In addition, the European Commission banned bottom trawling in deep waters, those below 800 m depth, in 2016.
In countries where most of the fishing is subsistence (Bangladesh is an example), it is small-scale fishing practices that dominate. Large-scale practices are almost non-existent.
Finally, we see large-scale practices growing in some countries as they move from small-scale subsistence fishing to larger industrial practices. In Ghana, for example, seine netting has recently become the most common form of capture.
Source:
Ritchie H. & Roser M. (2021, Octubre) Fishing and Overfishing, Our world in Data (first published). URL: https://ourworldindata.org/fish-and-overfishing#total-seafood-production-by-countryQ
With appreciation Ray Hilborn, Michael Melnychuk, Max Mossler y Daniel Hively de RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database for providing the data and comments on the project..
