Catching remarks
Engraulis ringens is the most heavily targeted single fish species in the oceans. It is distributed along the coasts of Peru and Chile in the immensely productive Humboldt current system, a stream carrying cold water from the Antarctic and upwelling deep and nutrient-rich water to the surface. Here, E. ringens finds the preferred cold water and the preferred prey zooplankton. In years of El Nino and in summer, when warm water spreads, E. ringens migrates closer to the coast to stay in cold water layers. Because E. ringens lives in schools, fishing folks predominantly use purse seining to catch it, which imposes the risk of catching under-sized IND. In fact, the target size entails JUVENILES as well as ADULTS. What concerns bycatch of non-target species, E. ringens is the main prey for some penguins, dolphins, boobies, birds, sea lions, and seals among others. These species are in danger of being accidentally caught by the E. ringens fishery, especially by the wooden (32.6-110 m3 holding capacity) or steel industrial fleet (90-870 m3) which catches E. ringens for fish meal production. The wooden small- (<10 m3) and medium-scale fleet (10-32.6 m3) catches E. ringens for direct human consumption and seldomly causes bycatch of larger species than jellyfish.
Besides the high density inside the purse seine during hauling and especially during crowding causing injuries and stress, E. ringens will be easy prey for adjacent predators. Transfer to the vessel mainly happens via pumps which avoids contact with air, but the arrival on deck or in the storage containers is most likely stressful and may lead to injuries. Further research is needed on welfare hazards and their consequences. E. ringens is brought to land without prior stunning or slaughter. A protocol for both, stunning and slaughter, is urgently needed.
For details see: WelfareCheck | catch (pre-release)
Related news
FishEthoGroup produced new spots of their Fish Talk's podcast programme on species from the fair-fish database. In series 18, you will find around 2 minutes of informative knowledge on Papyrocranus afer (Reticulated knifefish), Barbonymus schwanenfeldii (Tinfoil barb), and Arapaima gigas (Arapaima). For the first time, FishEthoGroup also covered a wild-caught species of our recently launched catch branch: Engraulis ringens (Peruvian anchoveta). And if you cannot get enough, also give their new episode of The Fish Mind programme a listen. In the current season about fish abilities, you may find episodes on memory, tool use, and self recognition. The new episode 4 is all about nest building in fishes. Enjoy and recommend!
The fair-fish database team is proud to launch the catch branch of the database. With this, we effectively enter a new era since our start in 2013. After months of work, we now broadened the scope of the database from aquaculture to fisheries.
What stays the same is our concern for the welfare of aquatic species – although in fisheries, we are aware that the welfare will never be good, as the contact with humans is limited to the final chapter of the species' lifes with the eventual goal to kill the fishes. Still, there are many steps along the catching process which potentially give rise to improvements with the aim to at least reduce the suffering as much as possible. For the rationale of the catch branch, see here.
The first profile which introduces the catch branch is the WelfareCheck | catch of Engraulis ringens (Peruvian anchoveta) caught with purse seines. Our assessment of the welfare potential is quite grim which is in part also due to the little literature we found on welfare-related issues. This is just one reason why we released this WelfareCheck as a pre-release: We would like to receive your feedback on the new branch, are eager for your input on Engraulis ringens in particular, and are still ironing out some kinks. Stay tuned for more developments and new profiles of aquatic species in fisheries!