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Dieren en planten

Sharks   Porbeagle   

Water en land

Mens en Milieu

Fishery techniques   Longline fisheries   
Longline fisheries, Ecomare

Longline fisheries

Longline fisheries work with long lines from which lots of branched lines with baited hooks hang. The main line can be kilometers long, sometimes with more than 2500 side lines with bait. Swordfish, tuna and sharks are caught with this method in the oceans. This fishery technique is also notorious for catching albatross, sea turtles and rare species of sharks. Other longliners let the main line sink to the bottom to catch cod or halibut. This form of longlining has fewer casualities.

  • Victims

    When fishing with longlines, between 50,000 and 100,000 birds, fulmars in particular, are caught as undesirable catch every year. The British bird society (RSPB) has asked all the countries which fish with lines to make plans to decrease the number of caught birds. Sometimes, marine mammals are also caught on the hooks of the longlines, which usually ends in drowning.

  • Fishing with a longline

    Longline fishing is one of the oldest fishing techniques applied in the North Sea for catching fish such as cod. The method has now been modernized, but it used to be an enormously long longline. There are reports of lines as long as 12 kilometers. The line was always sunk to the bottom. The fishermen often used slices of sea lampreys or pieces of herring as bait. Fishing floats with flags were placed at regular intervals along the main line. In that way, the fishermen and other seafarers could see where the net lay. When the entire line was placed, the ship sailed back to the first fishing float to start hauling in the net with its catch.