CleanCatch UK

Who will use the CleanCatch UK App?
The CleanCatch UK app is an intuitive, interactive tool to enable commercial fishers to self-report at sea their total catch information and report the unintentional capture of vulnerable wildlife species in UK fisheries.

The Clean Catch UK programme, together with the Fisheries Science Partnership initiative, the small pelagic self-sampling and electronic monitoring project, are supporting the UK Government’s commitment to work closely with the fishing industry. These projects equip fishers to take a greater shared responsibility for sustainably managing UK fisheries, through reporting important data on the catch.

Co-developed with fishers and scientists in the Clean Catch UK and Fisheries Science Partnership projects, this app has been designed to collect data needed by scientists without being unduly burdensome on fishers.

The information collected using the app will be used by scientists to

i) improve our understanding of the incidence of vulnerable wildlife being bycaught whilst fishing, including the areas and species most affected in UK fisheries; and
ii) understand the catch composition in UK sardine and sprat fisheries, which will be used by scientists to improve management of these stocks.

What data will the CleanCatch UK App collect?

Using simple click-through and intuitive prompt questions, fishers can report the details of

1. Daily fishing activity (e.g. weight of target catches by species, gear, soak time and location).
2. Length composition of target species in sardine and sprat fisheries.
3. Wildlife bycatch (e.g. dolphins/ porpoises, sharks, seabirds, seals etc).
4. Gear modifications or mitigation devices actively used to reduce wildlife bycatch.

Disclaimer: No personal information will be collected by the app, and a secure sign-in feature keeps all pre-entered information saved and secure.

When will the CleanCatch UK app be used?

The app has been co-designed with fishers to be intuitive (e.g. fishers will be prompted to collect, sample, and record a proportion of their catch) to use when fishing, every day at sea. The app can work offline, allowing data to be recorded and saved in real-time while at sea and uploaded when back in mobile range or connected to Wi-Fi.

Where will the CleanCatch UK app be used?

The app’s features allow it to be used across all relevant UK fisheries. This includes, both inshore and offshore net, trawl, line and trap fisheries.

Why is the CleanCatch UK app needed?

· To improve the understanding of unintentional capture of vulnerable wildlife in pursuit of clean catches in UK fisheries: The UK Government’s ambition is to reduce and, where possible, eliminate bycatch of vulnerable wildlife in UK fisheries. To determine the best ways to reduce wildlife bycatch, and to see if they work, we first need to better understand the extent of the problem. The challenge is that the existing level of monitoring of wildlife bycatch in UK fisheries through observer programmes is sub-optimal, so the details of wildlife bycatch occurrence is poorly understood across UK fisheries. The CleanCatch UK app puts fishers at the heart of monitoring, providing them with an intuitive and interactive tool to self-report their unintentional wildlife bycatch, that otherwise goes unrecorded. The CleanCatch UK app will help to increase the level of wildlife bycatch monitoring in UK fisheries, building a better understanding of bycatch in UK fisheries.
· To improve our understanding of the catch composition in the UK sardine and sprat fisheries, for better stock management: UK Government’s ambition is to increase the collection of catch data from several coastal fisheries in the UK. Currently the stock assessment of several of the pelagic stocks (e.g. sprat & sardine) targeted by these fisheries are data-limited and additional information (length composition) from the catch is needed to help improve their stock assessment and improve sustainability of the fisheries.